BY JOHN PATTERSON
SALISBURY POST

A Salisbury man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Monday in the November 1997 shooting death of a 22-year-old man outside Colonial Village Apartments.

Lee Edward Cook Jr., 28, held in the Rowan County Detention Center since the Nov. 14, 1997, shooting, accepted a plea arrangement from District Attorney Bill Kenerly and was sentenced to a minimum of 9 1/2 years in prison. The maximum time Cook could serve in prison is 12 years and two months.

Cook shot Michael Farmer once in the abdomen after the two scuffled in the parking lot of the apartment complex. Farmer died the next morning at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

According to investigator Rodney Harris, Cook went to the apartment complex that evening to deliver a birthday gift to his daughter, Raven, who lived with her mother – and Cook’s former girlfriend – Lasheika Byrd.

Byrd was dating Farmer at the time of the shooting, and Cook had been ordered to stay away from Byrd, according to Harris. Farmer apparently assaulted Cook as he tried to get out of his car, and things worsened from there.

‘‘He (Cook) pulled in and turned around to get the toys (he’d bought for Raven) and he heard someone open his car door,’’ said Harris, on the witness stand Monday to provide a narrative of the case. ‘‘It was Farmer ... he hit him and wouldn’t let him out of the car.’’

According to Harris, Cook told Farmer to let him out of the car ‘‘so he could fight him like a man.’’ Eventually, Cook reached for the .380-caliber handgun and shot Farmer once.

Cook apparently thought he’d shot Farmer in the foot, so he walked past him and up to Byrd’s apartment. Cook told Byrd that he’d shot Farmer, and after an argument with Byrd, Cook left the apartment complex in a car.

Cook later turned himself in at the magistrate’s office. According to Harris, he also told a number of people ‘‘he’d shot Farmer’’ between the time of the shooting and when he turned himself in.

David Bingham, Cook’s attorney, said he felt the evidence in the case could have warranted a second-degree murder conviction. Also, Bingham said, it became clear that there were some ‘‘first-degree (murder) overtones’’ in the case, specifically the ‘‘history of bad blood’’ between Cook and Farmer.

‘‘Cook is highly remorseful for what happened,’’ Bingham said. ‘‘He is very sorry for what happened to Mr. Farmer ... and he is sorry that he has made such a wreck of his life.’’

Cook will receive credit for time he’s already served at the detention center.

Manslaughter case

In a separate case also heard Monday, a 51-year-old East Spencer woman pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the Feb. 26, 1998, stabbing death of a man who shared her home.

Corine Jackson stabbed Jimmy Wayne Massey, 46, once in the chest with a kitchen knife after an argument. Massey apparently threatened Jackson with a pocket knife, and Jackson armed herself with the knife shortly before the stabbing, according to Don Gale, a special agent with the State Bureau of Investigation.

Witnesses at Jackson’s house, located at 808 N. Long St., said the Massey and Jackson were ‘‘swinging the knives at each other,’’ Gale said. East Spencer Police recovered a pocket knife and the murder weapon.

Jackson, also represented by Bingham, called 911 and told a dispatcher she had stabbed Massey. The two had lived together for seven years.

Jackson will serve a minimum of three years and two months in prison and a maximum of four years and seven months. She was also ordered to reimburse Massey’s family $3,706 for his funeral expenses.

Cook and Massey are the second and third murder defendants to have their cases disposed of in less than a month by Kenerly. J.C. Castor was convicted in February of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the shooting death of Golden Billings.

But in what has been an unusually busy stretch for Kenerly and his staff, 10 separate murder cases – and 14 murder defendants – are still awaiting trial in Rowan County.