Wilmjax News

(10/23/07 — RALEIGH) - The man charged with stabbing two Meals on Wheels workers in Rocky Mount faced a judge Tuesday morning as the District Attorney announced his office will seek the death penalty in this case.

The hearing this morning lasted only a few minutes. The judge reviewed the charges and a prosecutor from the District Attorney’s Office announced they plan to seek the death penalty in the stabbing death of 58-year-old Debbie Korengay.

In the courtroom, Tommie Holiday, 30, said nothing and paused before acknowledging the judge when asked if he understood the crime he’s facing - first degree murder charges in the death of Debbie Korengay and first degree attempted murder in the repeated stabbing of Eve Beasley.

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(10/23/07 — LUMBERTON) - A Lumberton City Council member is locked up in Kentucky, charged with rape.

John Cantey, Jr. is being held in Louisville. He’s the manager of a rap group and was in a town near Louisville for a concert.

The Jefferson Town Police chief says an 19-year-old woman went to Cantey’s hotel room after a concert Friday night.

She later told police she has been raped. Cantey is scheduled to be in court November 1st.

Article here.

CHARLOTTE, NC — Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they believe James Gladden is responsible for starting two fires at the same apartment complex.

Gladden was arrested and charged with arson early Saturday morning after fire officials responded to an apartment fire on West 26th Street just after 1a.m.

The fire was put out quickly and no one was hurt.

Article here.

Mike Nifong wanted the taxpayers of North Carolina to defend the indefensible: him. The taxpayers have declined. And not respectfully.

Durham’s disbarred former district attorney is being sued by the three Duke students whom he tried to convict of serious crimes that he had every reason to doubt they had committed.

Nifong’s lawyer asked the state to pay to defend him, contending that Nifong was performing his duties as a constitutional officer of the state.

In fact, he was betraying those duties and that constitution. His fellow lawyers concluded that he cheated and lied to win a case that had disintegrated. Attorney General Roy Cooper called him a “rogue prosecutor.”

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A Catawba County man charged with driving drunk through downtown Hickory was sentenced Friday to at least 13 years and five months in prison in connection with a crash that left a woman dead.

Jurors deliberated for five hours before deciding to find 21-year-old Enrique Cardenas Zavala guilty of second-degree murder in the Sept. 29, 2006, death of 55-year-old Rena Moore. Her husband, 59-year-old Jerry Moore, was critically injured.

Attorneys on both sides said they agreed on the facts — that Cardenas Zavala had gone to Hickory High School’s homecoming football game and decided to drink alcohol. Afterward, they agreed, he stopped at a convenience store and bought some beer.

He was speeding through downtown Hickory’s streets, going 62 mph in a 25 mph zone, when he drove his 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix through a red light and slammed into the Moores’ pickup truck.

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Outgoing Sheriff Jim Pendergraph lashed out Friday at county leaders who have proposed stripping the sheriff of responsibility for the jails.

“My telephone on my desk has had the same number for 13 years,” Pendergraph said at a news conference, “and as of this minute, no one from the county manager’s office or the board of commissioners has phoned to inform me that this issue was under discussion. This is totally disrespectful to me and my dedicated staff, and I am furious about it.”

Pendergraph called the proposal to hire a jail administrator “hare-brained” and said it appeared to be a “political power grab to remove the voters from the process of electing someone to operate this large organization.”

“In essence they are saying the voters are too stupid to elect the right person in the future.”

Parks Helms, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Mecklenburg commissioners, suggested the change Thursday, and commissioners asked staff to explore it. Helms said the idea is to ensure the jails are run efficiently and by a qualified professional.

The proposal has since sparked e-mails and conversations among activists from both parties questioning Helms’ motivation and wondering who the Democratic Party would recommend as Pendergraph’s successor. Some Democratic activists, particularly Latinos, oppose a controversial program championed by Pendergraph — and supported by his pick for successor — that identifies illegal immigrants at the jail and turns them over to federal authorities for deportation.

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SANFORD — Three teenagers accused of robbing a woman at gunpoint early Friday morning are behind bars.

Mariana Morales told investigators that she was followed by a silver car on her way home from work around 4:15 a.m. Friday, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Morales said that when she pulled into the entrance of her home, the silver car blocked her vehicle and three men jumped out of their car and approached her.

They busted out her vehicle’s window with a baseball bat and held her at gunpoint, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Morales was ordered out of her car and the three young men threatened to kill her, according to a statement released by the Sheriff’s Office.

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HICKORY, N.C. — After deliberations continued this morning in a drunken driving case in Catawba County, 21-year-old Enrique Zavalas is found guilty of second degree murder in the killing a woman last September near downtown Hickory.

Police say Zavalas’ blood alcohol level was above the legal limit and he was driving at more than twice the speed limit when he crashed into Jerry and Rena Moore’s truck.

Rena Moore was killed and Jerry Moore was seriously injured.

Prosecutors say the jury was to decide between second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

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Spring Lake — Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputies, assisted by North Carolina A.L.E. agents, confiscated thousands of dollars in illegal contraband from a home in Spring Lake Friday morning.

Investigators raided the home at 303 Rutherford St. following numerous complaints from people working and living in the area.

Deputies reported seizing more than 64 grams of crack cocaine, a stolen handgun and close to $10,000 in U.S. currency from the residence. Two children who lived in the home were turned over to the Department of Social Services, which will be responsible for their well-being.

Four people were charged after the raid.

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A Mississippi man with a history of selling merchandise illegally has been charged with selling goods in Camden County without a permit.

Douglas Glenn Jarrell, 25, of 500E Fifth St., Gulfport, Miss., was arrested Wednesday and charged with violating the county’s peddlers ordinance, which requires solicitors to have a permit to conduct business in the county.

According to a press release from Sheriff Tony Perry, Jarrell was attempting to sell magazines and would become pushy when customers refused to buy them.

“These solicitors prey on anyone that they can convince to give them money, checks and even credit card numbers that could be used illegally,” Perry said in the release.

Jarrell was released on a $2,000 unsecured bond and warned not to continue soliciting without a license.

According to the sheriff’s office, Jarrell is tied to a street gang, though it is unclear which gang, and has gang-related tattoos on his knuckles, neck and forearms. He also has a criminal history of selling products illegally and felony cocaine possession, the release states.

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Police have arrested two men in connection with a brutal Wednesday morning rape in which the victim was hit several times in the head with a 2-by-4.

Jequan Sloan was arrested Thursday morning — a little more than a day after the assault in Grier Heights. Police charged him with attempted murder, rape, sex offense, kidnapping and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Sloan, 27, has an extensive arrest history, according to court records. In 2002, he was sentenced to more than a year in prison for selling cocaine. The court has also banned him from several east Charlotte apartment complexes.

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(10/18/07 — DURHAM) - The state Attorney General’s office has refused former Durham County prosecutor Mike Nifong’s request that the state represent him or pay his legal bills as he responds to a civil lawsuit filed by the three exonerated Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape.

Nifong, who left office in disgrace after leading the disastrous prosecution, had cited his role as a constitutional officer of the state in asking for the assistance. But in a letter sent to Nifong on Tuesday, chief deputy Attorney General Grayson Kelley told Nifong his conduct in the case meets one or more of the several reasons outlined in state law that disqualify him from such assistance.

The former players — falsely accused of raping a stripper at a March 2006 lacrosse team party — filed a federal civil rights lawsuit earlier this month naming Nifong, the city of Durham, several police officials, a private DNA laboratory and others. They are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

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(10/19/07 — ROCKY MOUNT) - Police arrested and charged a man Friday with Thursday’s stabbing of two Meals on Wheels workers at Lakeside Baptist Church in Rocky Mount.

Tommy Lee Holiday,30, is charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of armed robbery, and larceny of a motor vehicle. Holiday confessed to RMPD investigators, and he is currently being held at the Nash County jail with no bond.

They found one of the victims’ stolen vehicle Thursday evening and then found someone with the woman’s stolen cell phone. That person tipped police to Holiday.

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WILMINGTON — Wilmington police have arrested a man for last month’s armed robbery of the Taco Bell on college road.

They arrested Anthony Allen of Wilmington after serving a search warrant at his home. He is charged with armed robbery, kidnapping and felony conspiracy.

Detectives are still looking for the other man involved in the case.

Article here.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte man accused of renting property he didn’t own to others could soon face dozens of new fraud charges.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they expect to take new evidence in more than a dozen cases against Darryl Patterson to a grand jury.

Investigators say Patterson left angry people with less money and no place to live. One woman who says she was conned by the man spoke with Eyewitness News on Tuesday.

Pia Henderson said she’s been living with half-filled boxes in her living room since August, along with the half-empty feeling in her gut that comes from not knowing where she’s going to live one month to the next.

“I was actually supposed to be living in the house right now, but I’m not living there. I’m backed up with bills,” she said.

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