Felony cases await trials
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009
By Shavonne Potts
Salisbury Post
Prosecutors are preparing to try seven major felony cases this year, including three murder cases.
The first case expected to come to trial involves a Kannapolis woman, charged for her part in the 2005 attempted murder of a teen left for dead in the woods off a dirt road in Enochville.
Chandaliea Lowder, 28, of 7240 Beaver Road, appeared in a Rowan County courtroom Monday with her attorney, Steve Gray.
Lowder, along with two Kannapolis men — Michael Joseph McDowell, 33, and Jason Ray Sullivan, 18 — are charged with attempted first-degree murder.
Thomas Vogt Jr., the intended victim, survived. A resident of the Russell Farm Road found Vogt covered with leaves and left for dead.
Lowder, McDowell and Sullivan were arrested a day after investigators with the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department found Vogt.
Rowan District Attorney Bill Kenerly said Monday in court that he’s ready to proceed with the case.
“The case is over a year old,” he told Superior Court Judge John L. Holshouser Jr.
The trial is scheduled to start March 5.
In addition to this case, Kenerly said Tuesday he hopes to try six other cases this year. The cases include:
* Reginald Weeks who is charged in the rape and murder of his stepdaughter Brittany Loritts.
Loritts, 18, was found stabbed to death in her family’s home in 2005.
According to court records, Weeks initially told investigators that after leaving around 7:30 that morning, he had not been back to his house until finding Loritts’ body. But he arrived at a job site only a few miles away at 10:30 a.m. and could not account for the time in between.
Weeks was arrested a little more than a month after Loritts died on July 11.
Weeks was free on bond prior to a pre-trial hearing when the rape charge was added. He now remains in the Rowan County Detention Center.
* Shawn Goodman is charged with the murder of former Livingstone College student, Kristina Celeste Mack, and the rape and attempted murder of her 2-year-old daughter.
Mack was found stabbed to death in the kitchen of her West Thomas Street apartment in January 2004. Police found her daughter inside the apartment. Goodman was captured near Baton Rouge, La.
He has since been convicted of robbing a Georgia bank and was sentenced to nine years.
* Justin Alan Hammonds of Granite Quarry is charged with attempted first-degree rape and burglary. Authorities said that in December 2005 he entered a house near Faith Elementary School.
The woman who lived in the house told investigators that she was awakened by a man wearing gloves and a ski mask.
* Niles Belk, also knon as “Damon Jones,” is facing robbery and assault charges along with Andre Lee Corbett and Keith Alan Turner. They are charged with the December 2005 robbery of Dollar General store near Salisbury Mall.
Salisbury police were conducting surveillance in the area when the two men wearing ski masks came out of Dollar General.
The fleeing robbers pointed guns at the officers. Police shot Belk who was hospitalized.
All three are charged with multiple offenses including kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.
* Three men are charged with robbing and killing a Rockwell man in September 2006.
Edward Wayne Moose was stabbed in the arm and beaten with a ceiling fan inside his home. He died two weeks later in the hospital.
Christopher Lee Phipps and Jimmy Richard Allen II, both of Rockwell, and Greg Devin Sims, of Salisbury, are charged with murder, breaking and entering and burglary. Two others, David Ledford Carpenter of Kannapolis and Jason Ray Williams of Rockwell are charged with burglary and larceny.
* Michael Ray Self of Mocksville is charged with causing a collision that seriously injured a Faith teen. He was charged with drunk driving and assault with a deadly weapon causing serious injury in a Christmas Day wreck in 2005.
Tiffany Dawn Woodie, now 18, was a passenger in a car that was struck near N.C. 152. She suffered numerous injuries including head and internal injuries and has gone through countless surgeries. She has since been released from the hospital and is continuing physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Contact Shavonne Potts at 704-797-4253 or spotts@salisburypost.com.
