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A Scream in the Dark: Chapter 7 - The Prosecution
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A Lee Enterprises, Incorporated newspaper. Majority shareholder: David Hoffmann, Hoffmann Media Group.
Photos/Videos/Interactive graphics
A Scream in the Dark: Chapter 7 - The Prosecution
- By Danielle Battaglia/News & Record
- Apr 15, 2016
- Apr 15, 2016
- 0
1 of 4

LaDonna French and her husband, Douglas “Troy” French, were killed in their home on Feb. 4, 2012, after running to their daughter Whitley’s aid after she screamed that someone was in her room. A judge has OK’d DNA testing of the suspect’s clothing and other personal items tied to the case.
- Contributed

Jose Silvano Alvarez, Jr.
Whitley French answers the door at her apartment in Greenville, NC on February 6, 2016.
- H. Scott Hoffmann/News & Record
Vincent Rabil
- Winston-Salem Journal photo
Prefer us on Google Learn More
By Danielle Battaglia/News & Record
The lurid and intricate details of the double homicides of Troy and LaDonna French are catalogued in 35 black binders, each 3 inches thick, that fill a rudimentary bookshelf in a closet of the office of Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer in Wentworth. The documents that didn’t fit onto those three, 3-foot shelves are recorded onto stacks of compact disks too numerous to count. Those CDs contain every photograph and many megabytes of video taken during the county’s investigation.
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+4
Craig Blitzer
Contact Danielle Battaglia at (336) 373-4476, and follow @dbattaglianr on Twitter.
About the author, series
About the author
Danielle Battaglia, 27, has covered courts and breaking news for the News & Record since 2014. Before that she spent 3.5 years as a general-assignment reporter for the Reidsville Review and Eden News in Rockingham County. She has covered the murders of Troy and LaDonna French since being awakened by a call from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 4, 2012, the morning they died.
About this series
The investigation into the murders of Troy and LaDonna French in February 2012 became one of the most discussed and analyzed in Rockingham County history. For four years this case has been embroiled in cold frustration and shrouded in odd secrecy. In August 2015 Jose Alvarez Jr., brother-in-law of the Frenches’ daughter, was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder. The evidence supporting his arrest and the motives that would have suggested he committed the crime have not been discussed, and he remains held without bond in the Rockingham County Jail.
The News & Record has spent a year gathering information, talking to witnesses, pursuing and inspecting sometimes sketchy court records and legally wrangling for access to information. Some central sources – such as the former District Attorney Phil Berger Jr. and longtime Sheriff Sam Page – declined to be interviewed. Attempts to reach and interview Jose Alvarez Jr. at the jail were rebuffed by him and his defense counsel, Vincent Rabil. Whitley French Alvarez, the only known witness to the crime, declined to speak beyond interviews she gave shortly after the murders. Her husband, John, brother to the accused, declined to speak, as did other members of the French, Moseley and Alvarez families. Access to interview Hunter French, the dead couple’s son, was declined by his guardians. Other members of the extended French and Moseley families, LaDonna French’s family, agreed to be interviewed at various levels of access.
This narrative version of the French homicides is based on investigative records and interviews and the public comments made immediately following the murders.
Contributors
Editor: Kymberli Hagelberg
Photographs: H. Scott Hoffmann, Joe Rodriquez, Nelson Kepley
Video production: H. Scott Hoffmann, Joe Rodriguez, Nelson Kepley
Multimedia, print graphics: Tim Rickard
Page design: Ben Villarreal, David Hurt
Copy editing: Carolina Design Center
Multimedia presentation: Kymberli Hagelberg, John O’Neal
Timeline
October 2011: Troy French tells family members his Hi-Point 9mm handgun is missing.
January 2012: Whitley French begins classes at East Carolina University.
Feb. 3, 2012:
- Troy and LaDonna French purchase a car from the Nissan dealership on Freeway Drive in Reidsville.
- Whitley French returns to the family’s home 791 Pinewood Road, in the Bethany community near Reidsville, for the first time since beginning classes at ECU.
- Hunter French calls his mother, LaDonna French, and says he plans to participate in a swim meet in Goldsboro.
- Whitley French visits Donald and Nancy Moseley, her maternal grandparents, who live across the road.
- Whitley, LaDonna and Troy French have a family dinner at their home.
- Whitley, LaDonna and Troy French attend a basketball game at Rockingham County High School.
- Troy French texts Hunter and says he will pick him up in the morning.
- Troy French calls his mother and asks her to attend Hunter French’s swim meet with him.
- At 10:30 p.m. Whitley French goes to her room to go to bed.
Feb. 4, 2012
- At 1:25 a.m. Whitley French uses her cell phone and then turns it off.
- At 2:12 a.m. Whitley French calls 911 to report her parents as dead.
- At 2:28 a.m. NC Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Collie is first to arrive at the French house.
- At 2:40 a.m. Ambulances take Whitley French to the hospital for treatment for a cut on her left arm and a burn on her chest.
- At 6:19 a.m. Deputies execute their first search warrant.
- At 2:05 p.m. Deputies execute a second search warrant.
- At 4 p.m. The bodies of Troy and LaDonna French are taken to the morgue.
- At 7:25 p.m. Deputies execute a third search warrant.
- At 10 p.m. Deputies release the crime scene to the Moseleys, LaDonna French’s parents.
Feb. 5, 2012: Donald Moseley, Kathy Moseley Hayes and four friends clean the house. They give a neighbor the bullet-riddled closet door to burn.
Feb. 7, 2012: The French and Moseley families receive guests during visitation at Reidsville Christian Church.
Feb. 8, 2012: At 3 p.m., the funeral for Troy and LaDonna French is held at the church, and the couple is buried at Sharon Baptist Church.
Feb. 8, 2012: Police return to the crime scene and discover that it has been cleaned and the door destroyed.
Feb. 9, 2012: Deputies interview Whitley French.
Feb. 10, 2012: Deputies have a reenactment of the shootings performed at the house.
Feb. 15, 2012: Deputies search French house.
Feb 28, 2012: Deputies search of Troy and LaDonna’s purse and wallet.
March 1, 2012: SBI releases trace gunshot residue tests to Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.
March 8, 2012: The SBI releases results from a firearm comparison.
March 29, 2012: Security footage taken from McCollum’s Grocery Store, about 10 minutes from the crime scene.
May 2, 2012: Judge Massey seals a search warrant.
May 2012: Sheriff’s office submits evidence to the North Carolina State Crime Lab.
June 20, 2012: The FBI enhances copies of Whitley’s 911 call.
June 28, 2012: Deputies take new photos of Whitley French’s injuries to determine how well they have healed.
Oct. 3, 2012: The SBI releases DNA results to investigators.
Oct. 12, 2012: The SBI releases DNA touch results and other DNA results.
Oct. 29, 2012: Investigators meet with Kathy Moseley Hayes.
Oct. 30, 2012: Deputies hold a press conference announcing Troy and LaDonna French were killed with Troy’s 9 mm Hi-Point handgun and that DNA found near their bodies belongs to a man. Sheriff Sam Page announces Whitley and Hunter French and John Alvarez are ruled out as suspects.
Nov. 1, 2012: Judge Tony Grogan seals a search warrant.
Nov. 2012: Investigators submit evidence to the state crime lab.
Dec. 2012: Investigators submit evidence to the state crime lab.
Jan. 2, 2013: Sheriff Page sends a letter to outgoing Gov. Bev Perdue asking for a $5,000 reward because he says the case has gone cold.
Jan. 10, 2013: Investigators submit evidence to the state crime lab.
Jan. 22, 2013: New Gov. Pat McCrory offers $5,000 reward.
Jan. 31, 2013: Investigators submit evidence to the state crime lab.
Feb. 4, 2013: Sheriff Page holds press conference on 1-year anniversary and says no one has been ruled out as a suspect.
Feb. 28, 2013: Investigators submit evidence to the state crime lab.
April 8, 2013: SBI returns DNA analysis to investigators.
May 7, 2013: SBI returns results of blood analysis.
July 15, 2013: The SBI returns analysis of trace hair samples.
Sept. 16, 2013: Whitley French is interviewed by Greenville-Pitt County Sheriff’s Office at East Carolina University.
Dec. 12, 2013: Investigators submit evidence to the State Bureau of Investigation.
Dec. 15, 2013: Eden Police Department receives a cell phone believed to be stolen from the French house.
Dec. 18, 2013: The sheriff’s office interviews witnesses regarding the cell phone.
Feb. 10, 2014: Deputies receive warrant to search cell phone.
Feb. 10, 2014: Deputies search for shell casings at Paul Cockram’s house in Ridgeway, Va.
April 1, 2014: Whitley French and Shannon and Craig French are interviewed.
April 28, 2014: Investigators submit evidence to the SBI.
May 6, 2014: Craig Blitzer wins the Republican Primary to replace Phil Berger Jr. as the district attorney for Rockingham County. He is unopposed for the general election.
July 16, 2014: Hunter and Craig French are interviewed.
July 24, 2014: Investigators submit evidence to the SBI.
Aug. 19, 2014: Deputies execute a polygraph test on Kathy Moseley Hayes.
Aug. 20, 2014: Deputies execute a polygraph test on Hunter French.
Oct. 21, 2014: The SBI returns evidence regarding shell casings found in Ridgeway.
Oct. 31, 2014: Deputies receive lab report concluding that John Alvarez is somehow related to DNA found at the crime scene.
Jan. 1, 2015: Blitzer is sworn in as Rockingham DA.
May 11, 2015: Detectives take DNA samples from Jose Alvarez Sr. and Jose Alvarez Jr.
May 13, 2015: Investigators submit evidence to the SBI.
May 16, 2015: Whitley French and John Alvarez are married at Summerfield Farm.
May 18, 2015: Jose Alvarez Jr. moves to 2811 Cottage Place in Greensboro.
June 9, 2015: The SBI concludes all five blood drops match Jose Alvarez Jr.’s DNA.
July 1, 2015: Deputies visit 2811 Cottage Place in Greensboro.
Aug. 17, 2015: DNA is returned from the state crime lab.
Aug. 25, 2015: Jose Alvarez Jr. surrenders himself at the sheriff’s office.
Aug. 25, 2015: Judge Ed Wilson seals a search warrant.
Aug. 26, 2015: Alvarez Jr. appears in Rockingham County District Court.
Sept. 8, 2015: Jose Alvarez Jr. is indicted.
Sept. 9, 2015: Judge Stan Allen seals a search warrant.
Sept. 28, 2015: Judge Susan Bray schedules a death-penalty hearing for Jan. 1 or later.
Nov. 30, 2015: Jose Alvarez Jr. appears before Judge Ed Wilson for an administrative hearing to consider how certain evidence would be handled.
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LaDonna French and her husband, Douglas “Troy” French, were killed in their home on Feb. 4, 2012, after running to their daughter Whitley’s aid after she screamed that someone was in her room. A judge has OK’d DNA testing of the suspect’s clothing and other personal items tied to the case.
- Contributed
Jose Silvano Alvarez, Jr.
Whitley French answers the door at her apartment in Greenville, NC on February 6, 2016.
- H. Scott Hoffmann/News & Record
Vincent Rabil
- Winston-Salem Journal photo
Craig Blitzer
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