Police investigate shooting death

ROCKINGHAM — A man is dead following a domestic dispute late last week.

Officers responded to a call of shots fired at a Rockingham residence last Thursday where they found 22-year-old Raymond Toussaint Woods shot in the upper body, according to a press release from the Rockingham Police Department.

Woods was airlifted to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill where he died from gunshot wounds the following day.

No charges had been filed as of Tuesday afternoon and police say the investigation is ongoing.

Ring bought with funny money

HAMLET — A South Carolina woman trying to sell what she said was a 14-karat white gold, three-diamond ring was snookered out of her $1,700 asking price with fake cash, Detective Capt. Randy Dover said Monday.

The woman drove up from Chesterfield, South Carolina, to the Hardee’s parking lot on Friday, Dover said, intending to rendezvous with an unknown buyer she had met on the Let It Go site.

The unidentified potential buyer handed the woman a wad of cash and took the ring, he said. It was only later that the woman discovered the cash only looked real, Dover said.

That kind of bogus cash — the kind rappers throw around in their videos — also can be found online, Dover said.

Blaze burns car, home

HAMLET — A trash fire that spread to a home and car caused more than $20,000 in damage on New Year’s Day, the Hamlet Fire Department reported Thursday.

The woman who lived in a manufactured home at 107 Daniels St. added trash to a receptacle at about 2:30 p.m. Jan. 1, not realizing that a previous trash fire had not burned out entirely, said Assistant Chief Richard Lassiter. The rekindled blaze spread to a late-1990s Honda Civic and a storage shed, and melted the plastic siding and air-conditioner housing on the manufactured home, he said.

Damage was estimated at $21,000 to $22,000. The homeowner has no insurance on the car but does have it on her home, Lassiter said.

Police: Handgun dropped in trash

HAMLET — When Hamlet Police Officer Chad Haywood pulled over a vehicle with an expired temporary tag at 3 p.m. last Wednesday, a driver and passenger both left the car after pulling into the lot of the Circle B convenience store on Earle Franklin Drive.

“I noticed the passenger pulled something out of his britches” and dropped it into a trash container, Haywood said. Detective Lt. Richard Jordan said the “something” “turned out to be a handgun, which I recovered.”

The driver, 42-year-old Devon Stanback of Rockingham, was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, as the result of a conviction for breaking into a motor vehicle in 1995, Jordan said. He is in the Richmond County Jail in lieu of a $10,000 secured bond.

Traffic stop nets firearm, other charges

HAMLET — Marcus Lee Hunt of Rockingham received a trio of charges from the Hamlet Police Department after a traffic stop Dec. 30: driving while his driver’s license was revoked, driving with an open container of alcohol and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Hunt was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond, said Dover.

Hunt has an extensive criminal past — including misdemenaor and felony drug and fraud convictions — according to records with the N.C. Department of Public Safety Division of Adult Correction.

Items stolen from corrections employee

HAMLET — A thief or thieves marked the new year by breaking into a Chrysler 300 on Spring Street soon after midnight Jan. 1, taking materials belonging to the N.C. Department of Corrections, Dover said last Wednesday.

Dover would not say what the materials were but did say the car did not belong to the department; its owner works there.

“I don’t want to put out what it is (that was stolen) because I’m looking for a certain item,” Dover said.

All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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Staff reports