Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Kill Devil Hills, NC

Kill Devil Hills is a town on the Outer Banks barrier islands in Dare County, North Carolina, tucked between Kitty Hawk to the north and Nags Head to the south.

Kill Devil Hills is the actual site of the Wright brothers' first successful powered, controlled airplane flights on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk.

Orville Wright piloted the first flight, which lasted just 12 seconds and covered 120 feet; the brothers made four flights that day, and the longest covered 852 feet.

The Wright brothers chose the Kill Devil Hills dunes for their steady winds, soft sand for landings, and privacy, based on information from the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The Wright Brothers National Memorial preserves the flight grounds, and a 60-foot granite monument crowns Big Kill Devil Hill, the dune from which the brothers ran their glider experiments.

The town's unusual name dates to the Colonial era, when 'kill devil' was slang for potent rum; legend says barrels of rum salvaged from shipwrecks were hidden in the dunes, and the rum was said to be strong enough to 'kill the devil.'

The town of Kill Devil Hills did not exist at the time of the first flight; it received its municipal charter in 1953, fifty years later, on March 6, 1953.

Kill Devil Hills is the largest municipality in Dare County by population.

The 2020 census counted 7,656 people in Kill Devil Hills, and the town had about 3,384 households.

Kill Devil Hills had only 268 residents in the 1960 census, before Outer Banks tourism transformed it into a year-round town.