The Durham County District Attorney’s Office this week filed charges against a 19-year-old man for the high-profile shooting deaths of two men last month on the campus of North Carolina Central University.
Law enforcement agencies across the Triangle have issued a battery of charges against Dezmond Armond Harper, who has been accused of a violent crime spree that claimed the lives of three people.
District Attorney Satana Deberry’s office on Tuesday issued bills of indictment against Harper of Durham for the September 18 shooting deaths of Shamori Brown and Tavis Rhodes, both 20, of Durham.
Wake County Sheriff’s spokesman Eric Curry told the INDY on Wednesday that Harper has been in jail for 36 days on charges of murder for a fatal shooting that took place on September 7 at the Brier Creek apartments in the 7900 block of Sumpter Ridge Lane.
Harper is currently in custody at the Wake County jail, where he is being held on charges of murder, armed robbery, second degree kidnapping, and breaking and entering.
The batch of violent offenses originally took place on September 5—two days days before the Raleigh homicide—in Orange County, according to the Raleigh/Wake City-County Bureau of Identification.
Durham police say it was about 9 p.m. when officers were alerted to the sound of gunfire in a parking lot adjacent to the Latham Parking Deck in the 700 block of East Lawson Street on the NCCU campus two weeks later.
The officers found Brown, 21, and Rhodes, 20, who were both mortally wounded. The victims were taken to the hospital, where they died a short time later.
Investigators do not think the shootings were random, and described a black Nissan Altima at the scene as “a suspect vehicle,” Michael stated in a press release.
Less than 48 hours later, police found another person shot dead just across the street from NCCU’s Farrison-Newton Communications Building.
It was shortly after 1 p.m. on Monday when police were dispatched to a “sound of shots call” in the 500 block of Dupree Street, Michael said.
The officers found a man inside of a home with multiple gunshot wounds. The victim, whose name has not been made public, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Like the shootings that happened 48 hours before, investigators do not think the shooting on Dupree Street was a random incident.
The unprecedented double slaying during NCCU’s football game against Winston-Salem State University prompted school administrators to release a series of press releases over the weekend.
Johnson O. Akinleye offered condolences to families of the victims, and pleaded with city, county, and state officials to devote more resources and attention to the issues of crime in the Bull City.
Apparently, the university chancellor’s plea resonates across the Triangle.
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Follow Durham Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald on Twitter or send an email to tmcdonald@indyweek.com.