It was a fairly simple inside job in the end, one easily borrowed from the playbook of any Hollywood jailbreak.

Anita Vestal was just a novice jailer, with less than six months on the job at the Swain County jail. But she single-handedly sprang an inmate charged in a bloodbath of a double murder.

The jury trial of a Swain County jailer accused of springing a murderer from jail more than four years ago will conclude next week with a certain guilty verdict.

By Jacob Flannick • SMN Correspondent

After ending a series of lessons in which she learned the basic steps of clogging, Dee Decker did not want to stop dancing.

So she held out hope for another floor, eventually moving into a classroom in a vacant church in Bryson City a couple years ago. That is where she — along with a handful of others who regularly take clogging lessons — spent hours during the winter and summer months, stomping and twirling to the old-time folk rhythms of Appalachia.

Swain County leaders were relieved this month when the state gave them the go ahead to tap $382,000 in interest from the North Shore Road settlement trust fund.

Swain County residents have finally learned where exactly its $2 million in grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation will go — to schools, job training and infrastructure.

The N.C. Department of Revenue is holding money belonging to Swain County captive, according to county officials.

For years Bryson City has battled gaudy signs, decrepit signs and too many signs, particularly along U.S. 19 coming into town. Until now, it’s never had a legal foot to stand on.

A Swain County High School junior varsity football player was suspended from school for 10 days and kicked off the team for racially derogatory comments made to a member of the Cherokee JV football team.

A Swain County deputy totaled his patrol car earlier this month after hitting a parked car while going more than 50 miles per hour.

Five full-time doctors practicing at Swain County Medical Center have left during the past year.

The departures account for half the doctors in the county, who not only staff the emergency room but also take care of patients staying in the hospital and double as family practitioners.