Individual Details

Death

Mrs. Pearlene Horton Furr, 43, prominent Locust woman, was found dead of a gunshot wound in the head about 2:30 p.m. Monday in the bedroom of her home near Locust. The clothed body was discovered by a son as he returned home from school. Sheriff Ralph L. McSwain, who is directing an investigation into the death, said a bullet from a small caliber weapon was fired into the area of the neck and head. No weapon was found at the scene. Officers believe she had been dead for several hours. There as no evidence that the home had been burglarized. The body was sent to the Chief Medical Examiner’s office in Chapel Hill, but no report had been received on, Thursday morning. A thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death is underway by the Stanly County Sheriff’s Department, the SBI and the District Attorney’s office. No arrests or developments had been reported late Thurs- day morning. Funeral services for Mrs. Furr were conducted at 4 o'clock Wednesday afternoon in First Baptist Church of Locust, Where she was a member. Rev. Wayne Little officiated and burial was in the church cemetery. A native of Union County and a daughter of Earl C. and Georgia Trull Horton of Indian Trail, she was born May 3, 1932. In addition to her parents she is survived by two sons, Harold D. (Chuck) Furr, Jr., and Todd Berry Furr, both of the home; two daughters, Mrs. Danita F. Easley of Matthews and Mrs. Beverly Tueker of Locust; two sisters, Mrs. Billy Ray Little of Monroe and Mrs. David Orrell of Birmingham, Alabama, and two granddaughters, Jennifer Tucker and Courtney Easley. Stanly News and Press, Albemarle, North Carolina, September 19, 1975

LOCUST — Since Monday afternoon, when 10-year-old Todd Furr came home from school and found his mother’s body in a bedroom of their spacious brick, ranch-type home on Willow Road, law enforcement officers have swarmed through this tiny Stanly County community of 600 residents. “They’ve been as thick as bees around here,” one businessman said Thursday. No arrests have been made in the fatal shooting of Frances Earline Furr, the 43-year-old wife and mother of four who had been separated from her prominent and wealthy husband, Harold G. Furr, for more than two years. Stanly County Sheriff Ralph McSwain is heading an investigation which has involved as many as six State Bureau of Investigation agents and four of his own deputies. He said “a good many” persons had been questioned but would not say how many or if Furr had been questioned. Mrs. Furr was reportedly shot twice, once in the right temple and once in the neck with a small-caliber gun. The murder weapon has not been found, McSwain said. There was nothing to indicate either robbery or sexual assault, sources said. The murder is believed to have occurred about 8 a.m. Monday. Since March 1973, Mrs. Furr has brought assault charges against her husband on four occasions. Furr was found guilty each time in district court. In three of the cases, the charges were dismissed in Superior Court appeals. The Furrs were scheduled to be in district court next week. Court records show Mrs. Furr had asked the court to hold her husband in contempt for failing to keep up alimony payments of $200 a week, child support payments of $50 a week and for reportedly failing to pay her attorneys $3,500 in legal fees as a result of other court rulings. Furr’s office, a headquarters for his real estate and construction business, has been closed all week. Acquaintances here say Furr has been one of the prime movers in the recent growth of Locust. His companies, Furr and Co. and Furr Construction Co., have built several hundred houses for sale or rent. A funeral for Mrs. Furr was held Wednesday at Locust Baptist Church.
The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina, September 19, 1975