This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Fourth Estate Fund.
Relationship violence continues to be a pervasive issue in North Carolina. In 2023, the state ranked 10th in the country, according to a report by the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Wilmington was eighth in the state in 2019 by the number of calls or messages made to the hotline.
“Typically for violent crime, the offenders are known by the victims,” UNCW Chief of Police Frank Brinkley said about cases at the university. “We don’t have strangers breaking into the residence halls and committing these crimes.”
On campus, more than half of all reported violent crimes from the 2023 Annual Security Report were classified as either dating or domestic violence. The incidents were heavily concentrated in areas with on-campus housing facilities. Of the cases labeled as dating or domestic violence, the majority included harassment through digital communications, stalking, or both, and took place in the first few months of the academic year, mirroring larger trends seen on the national scale. The ‘relationships’ in relationship violence can mean a lot of different things: they can be relationships that turn toxic, former romantic partners who become violent, or one-sided situations where one person becomes fixated on another — with tragic results.
The murders of Jessica Faulkner and Christen Naujoks
Two cases of university relationship violence impacted admissions policies for the UNC System as a whole: the murders of UNCW students Jessica Faulkner and Christen Naujoks, both in 2004.
Faulkner’s murderer, Curtis Dixon, had been living on the same floor of Cornerstone Hall and was a part of the same friend group. He became obsessed with Faulkner soon after meeting at the beginning of the school year and made repeated advances which Faulkner rejected. Dixon confessed to having killed Faulkner in his dorm room on May 5, 2004, committing the first and only on-campus murder in university history. Dixon took his own life while in custody awaiting trial; the court case would have determined not whether he was guilty — since he admitted to the crime — but whether or not he was mentally competent.
A month later, on June 4, Christen Naujoks, also a UNCW student, was shot and killed in front of her off-campus apartment by ex-boyfriend John Peck. Peck committed the murder about a week after formal accusations of domestic violence; Naujoks had also filed a restraining order against him in April, according to reporting from WRAL News. Peck fled law enforcement and ultimately took his own life encountering a roadblock set up by authorities in western North Carolina.
Both Dixon and Peck were admitted to the university after lying on admissions documents about their involvement with the criminal justice system. University admissions did not have policies about verifying the criminal or disciplinary history of their applicants at this time.
On his enrollment application, Dixon omitted information about a misdemeanor larceny conviction, as well as his release from a U.S. Navy boot camp for homicidal and suicidal tendencies. Additionally, Dixon’s application, submitted by his father James Dixon who worked as an assistant to the chancellor at UNC-Charlotte, included falsified information about his academic and attendance record.
Peck also failed to disclose his criminal record when applying to UNCW; In 2001, he was convicted of one misdemeanor count of assault and two felony counts of crimes against nature. StarNews began looking into his past following a conversation with Naujoks’ mother, who was moved to call the newspaper after the murder of Faulkner.
Changes in the UNC system
The two tragedies had a significant impact on UNCW and the UNC system as a whole, which created a task force to draft new policies to help increase student safety. Although the Faulkner family sued the state system for negligence in 2006, when they settled two years later the family’s attorney spoke approvingly of the safety update, telling StarNews, “the university has gone overboard in a very good way for student safety.”
In 2006, the UNC System added the “Regulation on Student Applicant Background Checks” to the UNC Policy Manual. Universities are required to conduct background checks on either all students who are offered admission or all students offered admission “who indicate their intent to attend” — prior to their official enrollment. These background checks include reviewing the UNC System Suspension and Expulsion Data Base, the National Student Clearinghouse, and performing criminal background checks using- with consent- information such as an applicant’s social security number or fingerprints. The scope of the background check will also vary by the residential history of the applicant.
If an applicant is found to have a criminal or disciplinary history, the university must use information from the report, from any determined discrepancies between the student’s application and the results of the background check, and an evaluation of the potential threat that the applicant poses to campus safety to determine whether or not to proceed with the offer of admission (more information about this regulation can be found here.)
The university has continued to implement new safety measures. These days, general safety measures in UNCW housing include exterior entry doors that can only be opened with a UNCW One Card and 24/7 staffing provided by Housing and Residence Life (HRL) student workers and officers from a contract security firm. Although students in the past have worked overnight shifts at residences’ main desks, this is no longer the case.
“My understanding is that previous Student Affairs leadership reviewed and made an assessment that it was preferable to use contract employees during that shift,” Kevin Meaney, UNCW's director of housing and residence life, said
Over the past year, many residence halls upgraded their video cameras, to provide clearer footage as necessary. HRL facilities are also subject to all local, state, and federal policies, such as those on unlawful or violent conduct, in addition to the Code of Student Life. When such incidents take place in the residence halls, Meaney explained, HRL involves the Title IX and Clery Compliance Office, Dean of Students, and the UNCW Police Department (UPD).
Sergeant Vanessa Torroella works for the Investigations Division at UPD. She is personally responsible for reviewing cases labeled as dating violence and getting in contact with the victim.
“Before we even get involved, victims are walked through a potential safety plan,” Torroella explained. “They’re also asked if they feel comfortable in the residential hall; If they don’t then we will make arrangements with Housing and Residence Life to get them what we call a ‘safe room,’ for at least a couple days.”
Depending on the circumstances, UPD will then work with HRL to permanently reassign the individual to a new dorm room.
After this procedure is complete the department begins working to connect the victim with either on or off-campus resources, such as counseling or housing services. Depending on the circumstances of the given case, this is also when UPD reports the issue to the magistrate’s office to file charges and seek out a 50B order- a type of restraining order specifically offered by the state of North Carolina. If UPD has charges, the perpetrator of the offense can also be trespassed from campus; Meaning, if they enter university property, they will be arrested.
There are instances in which the interests of the department and the survivor do not completely align.
“It’s usually because they don’t want to aggravate the situation- and these are words that they have actually used,” Torroella said. “We do take that into consideration; We also have to look at the fact that it’s not only their wellbeing but it’s also the wellbeing of the campus community as well. If we have somebody who’s aggressive, who’s violent, and who has the presence of mind to try to do harm to that victim that’s reporting the crime, then we also have the [responsibility] to the rest of the campus community that’s in danger as well.”
UPD partners with the Title IX office to compile the Annual Security Report, which includes emergency contact information, crime definitions, and data from the previous calendar year. Per requirements from the Clery Act, the 2024 Annual Security Report, with the 2023 campus crime data, was published on UPD’s website on September 30.
Other UNC System schools with similar numbers of enrollment are UNC Greensboro (UNCG) and Appalachian State University (ASU), with slightly larger undergraduate student populations of over 20,000 and 21,253, respectively, as compared to UNCW’s total student population of about 18,000. For the 2023 calendar year, UNCG reported 30 cases of dating violence, 19 of which took place in residential facilities, and two cases of domestic violence — both also in residential facilities; ASU reported three cases of dating violence, two of which took place in residential facilities, and one case of domestic violence, which also took place in a residential facility. The UNCW security report for the 2023 calendar year has 11 cases of dating violence — three of which took place in residential facilities — and one case of domestic violence.
