Patricia Ann Mann, the youngest of four children, was a nursing student from Sanford, doing her residential training at Watts Hospital in Durham.
[3] On February 16, McBane's friend found his brother Marty's car the couple left in at a lover's lane at Wayside Place.
[4] On February 24, a surveyor in Duke Woods, three miles away from the lane, found Mann and McBane dead, tied to a tree and covered in leaves and debris.
Examinations also revealed that had multiple stab wounds to their chests, which were postmortem, and Mann's liver was ruptured from what was determined to be a punch to her stomach.
[1][9][12] The department tried to use M-VAC System technology, having one of only a hundred machines in existence and forty in the nation alone, to collect DNA from the ropes and other evidence.
[13][14] Nevertheless, the investigators have gotten calls offering other agencies' assistance and other technology for evidence collection, including from the Texas Rangers, Homeland Security, and law enforcement in the Netherlands and Australia.
[10] In 2018, writer and filmmaker Eryk Pruitt and journalist Drew Adamack collaborated to release the podcast The Long Dance on June 30, which focuses on the lives of Mann and McBane, as well as the timelines and investigations surrounding their murders.
[15] Horne communicated with Pruitt and Adamack within the year and a half the podcast was being developed, and not only shared each other information the other side was missing, but they also focused in on the same suspects.
[18] A doctor employed at Watts Hospital at the time of the murders, whose name has not been released, has been recently confirmed to be considered a person of interest, the only living out of three prime suspects.