Instead, Shelly Lee Crayton, 37, of 207 Balfour Quarry Road, Apt. 33, allegedly shot his girlfriend three times with a 9 mm hand gun around 11 p.m. Saturday night.

This is Granite Quarry’s first murder in 20 to 25 years, Granite Quarry Police Chief Clyde Adams said.

Sabrina Denise Goodman, 32, of the same address, suffered three gun shot wounds – one in the thigh, one that completely went through her arm and another through her chest/heart area, Adams said.

And then Crayton called 911.

He told 911 operators he had just shot somebody, “and he was waiting on the law to come,” Adams said this morning. “When they came, (he said) he’d put the gun down, and he’d come out and meet them.”

Crayton remains in the Rowan County Detention Center charged with first degree murder with no bond. Police have sent Goodman’s body to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

In an unrelated case of violence, Spencer police said they had no more information to release about the death of Michael Tyrone Long.

This morning, Spencer Police detectives, a Rowan County Sheriff’s crime scene technician and an agent from the State Bureau of Investigations were piecing together information they hope will lead them to the whoever murdered Long. The 21-year-old Spencer man was found dead Saturday morning in a house he shared with roommates.

The small meticulous taupe and white house at 804 Second St. was surrounded by yellow crime scene tape and invaded by investigators and officers this morning. Spencer Police Chief Lane Kepley said his patrol officers received a call around 9:57 a.m. Saturday morning from one of Long’s roommates, who apparently found him dead.

This morning the overcast in the sky fit the depressed and “shocked” mood of some of the neighbors in the 800 block of the Second St., a neighborhood its residents describe as “peaceful and quiet” and home to many children.

“It’s just really sad this all happened,” said neighbor Mary Cleveland. “It was really sad when the family was there yesterday, and they just broke down. I felt so sorry for them.”

Mary Cleveland and her husband, Douglas, have lived in their Gobble Street house since 1970, and Clevland says nothing ever happens there. Now the neighborhood is host to Spencer’s first murder of 1999.

The side of the Cleveland home faces the house where Long and his roommates lived.

“They seemed to be quiet,” Mary Cleveland said. “There was never any noise or any problems. And we didn’t see anything unusual the day he was found,’’ Cleveland said from her carport this morning, watching officers go in and out of the house, always one standing guard.

“They were nice guys.”

The murder scene is one of four newly built homes on Second Street, all belonging to Gene Lloyd of Raleigh, neighbors say. Several families had lived in the house before the young men moved in a few months ago.

On Saturday morning, when Long’s body was found, Mary Cleveland and her sister were enjoying a cup of coffee, when they saw police officers at the house.

“I hadn’t heard anything that morning, or the night before,” she said.

But Cleveland said she did notice a gathering at the house just a couple of Saturdays ago..

“There were about 15-20 teens and young adults there that afternoon, but there was no noise and no problems,’’ she recalled. “It’s always been a quiet neighborhood. I’m just so shocked. It makes you feel uneasy,” she said as her voice trailed off. “I didn’t even know his name.”

In Granite Quarry, Chief Adams knows who shot whom, but he can only speculate why.

The 32-year-old, who had never married, moved in with Crayton about six months ago.

“Several people (neighbors) have said they seemed like they were really like an ideal couple,” Adams said of his investigation. “She always smiled at them and waved.”

Crayton has refused to talk to police until he secures an attorney. “The only thing we can figure out is they were into a domestic,” Adams said. “His first wife had left him, and Sabrina had threatened to leave him, and he wasn’t going to let her leave.”

Crayton also told police that his waiting period for his divorce was almost up. He and his ex-wife have a 7-year-old daughter, who was with his ex-wife at the time.

Adams said Crayton actually shot Goodman around 10:14 p.m. Saturday night. “And he sat down on the couch in the living rom and waited for somebody to come. None of the neighbors said they heard anything. Nobody heard nothing.”

So, when no one came, he called 911 himself.

Neighbors didn’t hear anything at all, they told police. The only unusual thing they noticed was that Goodman’s car door and trunk remained open for several hours.

Police think Goodman might have been trying to pack, although there was no luggage in the car. And the trunk and door was closed when police arrived on the scene.

Police have had few problems in the Balfour Quarry Road apartments, Adams said. “It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood. Once in a while, you’ll have a domestic. We don’t have many problems over there, and the apartments have been there two years now.”

Police thought Crayton had his first appearance this morning to secure an attorney.