CHARLOTTE — Channel 9 uncovered that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department detectives have a person of interest in the mysterious death of this young woman near SouthPark.
It’s been nearly six months since police said they found Whitney Hurd, 32, stabbed to death inside her townhome.
Channel 9′s crime reporter Hunter Sáenz has uncovered new court documents in the case.
Sáenz received multiple messages from people worried and wondering about the case.
He, along with investigative producer Michael Praats, looked into it and obtained eight search warrants that named a person of interest and details about how police are trying to solve the brutal stabbing.
Hurd was a realtor who lived at the Magnolia Park townhome community in SouthPark just off Tyvola Road and Park Road, where she was found stabbed to death and wrapped in blankets in July 2024.
According to search warrants, her family said she never showed up to their house on July 4, 2024.
They reported her missing on July 11, 2024, and hired a private investigator who found her body three days later.
Her stolen BMW was found days after that.
Channel 9 spoke with concerned neighbors the week it happened.
“It was a little bit of a concern, obviously, so close to home,” said Mike Zeinemann, who lives two doors down from Hurd’s townhome. “Not sure if someone broke in. There wasn’t a lot of information that was being told that day.”
In the newly obtained search warrants, police said they have a person of interest thanks to fingerprints collected at the scene.
Channel 9 is not identifying him because he is not yet a suspect.
However, detectives were able to get DNA samples from him.
On Friday, Channel 9 learned he’s currently in the Mecklenburg County jail after he was arrested Thursday for a different crime.
Police said he stole a woman’s cash at the First Watch restaurant in Ballantyne.
Court records for that incident say “an alert was put out” for him “due to random acts of violence occurring the past two days, including assaulting random individuals.”
The search warrants in Hurd’s case say detectives got access to her Hinge app to investigate whether she had previously met her killer.
Her mother told them, “She was talking to several different men” on the app.
They also searched data from her Ring cameras, laptop, her Facebook and Instagram accounts, and cellphone.
The person of interest has been arrested before on separate charges, including in October 2024, nearly three months after Hurd’s killing.
He was able to bond out of jail on that charge.
Sáenz asked police if the person of interest had been questioned about the homicide yet but CMPD would not give him an answer.
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
