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Volume XCV, No. 196
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Suspects in theft ring ‘very, very immature’ By GLENN CRAVEN Daily Dispatch Editor
A local bail bonds agent who dealt with two young men caught burglarizing a Vance County home last September — and later unveiled as principals in a massive, multistate theft ring Hartis — said Friday that the first time she met the suspects, she was struck not only by how youthful they appeared, but that their
Probe in Stem shooting
behavior seemed even Local bail bonds agent recalls pair nabbed This week, it less mature than their was revealed by the in Vance for breaking into a county home federal Bureau of appreances. Tommy Lee Alcohol Tobacco and Null held the pair at bay until Lilly, 25, and Jaymes Firearms and the U.S. sheriff’s officers arrived to arrest Attorney’s Office for the Middle Dean Goss Hartis, 23, both them. of Albemarle, were captured District of North Carolina that Nicki Null, Jeff’s wife, reat gunpoint by Vance County Lilly and Hartis were among a turned a Dispatch phone call on homeowner Jeff Null as the group of nine known individuFriday morning to inform the pair ransacked his home at 531 als — and others who remain newspaper that her husband South Lynnbank Road on the unknown — who are accused of was now deceased. Jeff Null, morning of Sept. 11, 2008. A committing perhaps hundreds only 37, died on Oct. 19, 2008, sheriff’s report from that date of home burglaries in nearly a about five weeks after capturstates that, when confronted dozen North Carolina counties ing the burglars in his home. by Null, who asked what the and in South Carolina, as well. In addition to his wife, Null’s two were doing, Lilly replied, The crime ring is accused of survivors included two young “Something we’re not supposed using “sophisticated fixed and daughters. to be doing.” mobile surveillance” equipment
Storm clouds over Carolina
From STAFF REPORTS
OXFORD — Granville County Sheriff Brin Wilkins said his department is continuing to probe in the aftermath of the Thursday evening shooting that took the life of 62-year-old Jimmy Champion. “We’re still talking. We’ve got folks we’re interviewing back there now. We’re just trying to do a thorough investigation,” Wilkins told the Dispatch on Friday afternoon. An autopsy was being performed by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill, Wilkins said. Champion died at Durham Regional Hospital as a result of being struck by a discharge from a handgun, Wilkins said. Otis Perry, 30, was dePlease see PROBE, page 4A
Index Our Hometown . . . . . 2A Business & Farm. . . . 5A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . 6A Light Side . . . . . . . . . 7A Sports. . . . . . . . . . 1-5B Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5C Comics . . . . . . . . . . . 6C Classifieds. . . . . . . 7-9C
Weather
Henderson Walter H. Grissom Jr., 89 Stem James R. Champion Jr., 64 Warrenton Carl Robinson, 55
Please see SUSPECTS, page 4A
Complex owner, city at impasse Requirements at Beacon Light a ‘hardship’ By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
AP Photo/The Wilmington Star-News, Matt Born
Storms moved through the area at Kure Beach Friday. Swimming conditions were dangerous as a result of Hurricane Bill and are expected to get worse today. Hurricane Bill will cause flooding and beach erosion on the Outer Banks this weekend. The storm isn’t expected to bring any wind or rain, but the National Weather Service said Friday that Bill could cause water levels to rise three to four feet above normal on the Outer Banks. A weather service meteorologist says the ocean could spill over the roads there.
N.C. jobless rate hovers at 11 percent Numbers for July flat, but above previous high in '83 By EMERY P. DALESIO AP Business Writer
RALEIGH — Jobless workers in North Carolina gained no Today ground in July as they struggled against a statewide unemployment rate that stayed flat at 11 T-storm High: 88 percent, the state’s Employment Low: 67 Security Commission reported Friday. July’s unemployment rate, Sunday unchanged from June, marked a sixth consecutive month the number hovered above the previSunny ous historic high. Before this year, High: 89 the state’s highest unemployment Low: 65 rate was 9.7 percent in March Details, 3A 1983, a level matched in January and that has since run higher. “We’ve got a few months in a
Deaths
to case homes before breaking into them. The thefts, which law enforcement officials say might exceed $750,000, included more than 100 firearms, resulting in the filing of federal charges. Most of those crimes were committed in Cabarrus, Moore, Randolph, Rowan and Stanly counties of North Carolina. The Vance County crime scene was far outside the boundaries of where the group seems to have normally operated. After Lilly and Hartis were arrested in Vance County last
row that we haven’t seen the rate climb a lot,” said Robert Whaples, who chairs Wake Forest University’s economics department and focuses on labor markets. “It’s reached a plateau now. The bad news is that it’s a really high plateau.” But the reality was worse than the unchanged unemployment rate suggests, Whaples said. North Carolina saw almost 13,000 fewer people employed in July compared to June, the ESC said. Meanwhile, only California saw more positions evaporate from the economy, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said. That means North Carolina’s jobless rate stayed steady only because people previously classified as unemployed quit trying to find work and dropped out of the count, Whaples said. “Economists call that the dis-
couraged worker effect. People are looking and not finding,” he said. About 21,500 working-age North Carolinians reported in July they had quit looking for jobs because they’d become discouraged by searching without success, the ESC said. Bill Dubas hasn’t given up looking for a new job, but his experience since being laid off in October has been discouraging. “It’s been very lean the past four months. I have not had an inperson interview since the end of April,” said Dubas, though he has had three or four phone discussions with potential employers. Two co-workers on his fivemember team of software engineers have headed abroad for greener pastures. Dubas and the rest of his team were laid off in Please see JOBLESS, page 3A
Hydrant replacement to interrupt water service From STAFF REPORTS
The city of Henderson will turn off water to customers in one Obituaries, 4A neighborhood overnight Tuesday for a fire hydrant replacement. Water service will be interrupted for about four hours to customers in and near the work zone, on Andrews Avenue between Shank Street and Vicksboro Road. Service will be shut off at about 11:30
p.m. Tuesday and will resume around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, according to a flyer distributed by the City of Henderson Public Utilities Department. Andy Perkinson, the city’s utility maintenance supervisor, said there are a number of hydrants in the city that are due to be replaced, but Tuesday night’s work is replacing just one in the affected area.
Perkinson said about 350 water customers would have their service interrupted, in an area “from U.S. 1 down Andrews, down Vicksboro Road and down Highway 39.” Anyone with questions should call 431-6030 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. Send comments to news@hendersondispatch.com.
The owner of the rundown former Beacon Light apartment complex told a Friday afternoon meeting of Henderson city officials he is unable to meet a requirement to bring the 318 Boddie St. property into compliance with municipal codes and to transform the site into one of homeownership. Sharif Abdelhalim, noting he already posted a more than $1.29 million cash bond with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said he cannot and will not agree to the council majority’s requirement of Aug. 10 that he post a letter of credit with Henderson in an amount of 1 1/2 times the cost of demolition and clearing of the property. Abdelhalim at one point called having to come up with a second letter of credit both an “oppression” and a “hardship” and added, “You are really trying to get this guy to go away from here.” Abdelhalim made his remarks at an approximately hour and 10 minute session of the council’s Land Planning and Development Committee, which Councilman Michael Inscoe led in place of Chairman Michael Rainey. Inscoe reiterated the council’s terms, which say Abdelhalim has 45 days from the Aug. 10 council meeting to work out a schedule to bring the property into compliance, with a nine-month compliance deadline. If Abdelhalim does not do so, then the city would use the letter of credit to pay for demolishing and cleaning the property and would seek a portion of the $1.29 million posted with HUD to help do the same. “Basically, the ball is in your court and we need to see that plan of action,” Inscoe told Abdelhalim. Inscoe noted the city’s requirement of a letter of credit would be moot anyway if Abdelhalim were to do work on the site and finish the project. The HUD-sponsored lowincome complex, which dates to 1973 and is located on the southeast side of the city, was closed in Please see COMPLEX, page 3A