Asheville man charged with assault and kidnapping also “person of interest” in prostitute murder

Asheville resident Lewis Kyle Wilson, charged with the brutal assault and kidnapping of a prostitute, has been dubbed a “person of interest” in a 2006 murder and several similar attacks. Search warrants reveal details about this case, while people who know him shine light on community reactions. Warning: this material is extremely graphic.

Sweet innovation

Organic farmers tend to be diehard traditionalists, championing agricultural practices that would be familiar to a 19th-century homesteader equipped with a mule and a wooden plow. Newfangled techniques involving chemicals, crop specialization and mechanization are considered suspect by the softly treading sustainable set, whose members thrill to rich compost and heirloom melons. Taste test: How […]

Mountain BizWorks director steps down

Greg Walker-Wilson is stepping down as chief executive officer of Mountain BizWorks, an Asheville-based nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs develop businesses and find financial support. He plans to move his family to South America later this year to enrich their life experience and extend his service work. Walker-Wilson, his wife, Susanne, and their two children, 11-year-old […]

Burton Street neighborho­od celebrates reopening of community center

The spiffed-up Burton Street Recreation Center should really just be called “home,” because that’s what it felt like as folks gathered Jan. 12 to celebrate its recent reopening. Neighbors hugged, carried in covered dishes and checked out the community center’s fresh paint and gleaming halls. Once a shabby symbol of the drug-ridden streets outside, the […]

Welcome to A&E

could we keep track of everything? But it’s also bad because there’s never enough space for All the Awesome Stuff Happening in Asheville every week. Velcroheads: The “how-did-they-think-of-that” choreography of performance art troupe Galumpha. The Diana Wortham Theatre, for example, has a great-looking roster of events planned for the spring. But Galumpha may take their […]

Cabaret of the weird

“The Fringe Festival is an exciting, wild ride of experiences,” says festival organizer and performer Jim Julien. From abstract-movement theater to original Claymation to puppetry set to poetry, the Fringe Festival puts edgy, out-of-the ordinary and often shocking performance art in the spotlight. Now in its seventh year, the festival continues to challenge local artists […]

Family jewels

The South may rise again, but Randol Duncan—the acrid main character of The Plunder Room (Thomas Dunne Books, 2009)—will not. Randol narrates his tale from the confines of his wheelchair, a rare paraplegic hero fashioned, in many ways, in the image of his maker. “This whole country has been plundered”: John Jeter says he “was […]