Man shot to death on road
By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on August 14, 2007 1:45 PM
One man is dead and another man is on the run after a verbal dispute turned deadly at about 12:30 p.m. Monday on Waynewoods Drive in the Saulston community.
Junior Guerra, 26, of Princeton, was allegedly shot and killed by his sister's boyfriend, Orbelin Pacheco Mejia, 30, of Pikeville, in a residential neighborhood where children were playing nearby.
Guerra and his brother drove to the area to confront Mejia about a fight between him and his girlfriend. The girl was also Guerra's sister.
"There had been a domestic thing between the suspect and the girl," Wayne County Sheriff Carey Winders said. "Two of her brothers came over there to straighten something out and talk to him, but there was a confrontation.
"One of the brothers tried to talk to him (Mejia), and he (Mejia) pulled out a gun. He (one of the brothers) rushed up to the window. And that's when Mejia shot him and dragged him, and he must have fell. The other brother was still in the truck."
Details surrounding the murder are still sketchy. But sheriff officials said that one of the Guerra brothers, who was driving a black Dodge Ram truck, chased Mejia in his silver Chevrolet Malibu and t-boned him.
Mejia's car flipped over in a small embankment due to the impact of the collision, and the truck rolled into a nearby yard.
Mejia climbed out of the overturned Malibu and fled the scene.
Guerra's body was found a few hundred feet away on Waynewoods Drive off of Antioch Road in the Saulston community in front of a neighbor's mailbox.
The Wayne County Sheriff's Office and the N.C. Highway Patrol were dispatched to the scene and found Guerra dead.
A silver gun was found near the body, and investigators are working to determine who it belonged to.
This murder was the second in Wayne County in a week, and neighbors of the area were troubled by this sort of violent crime that occurred in their normally quiet community.
One neighbor said her children "saw something that really bothered them," and she rushed home as soon as she received word about the incident.
"I knew they were torn up by the way they were talking about it," she said. "I don't like it. My kids will be dreaming about it all night. This is too much for them."
The woman, who asked not to be identified because she feared for her safety, said that this type of violence is unusual in her community.
"This is a nice, quiet neighborhood," she said. "There is no trouble. Kids have run-ins, but kids will be kids. We have never had anything like this happen before."
Another neighbor said that the area had problems but never to the extent of this one.
"I have had all I can take," she said. "I am moving."
She said that she has had four break-ins since she has moved there nine years ago, and she is fed up with crime.
The sheriff said that the area has had some problems, but he is working to address them.
And he is putting this murder at the forefront.
The sheriff said that his department is taking the lead on the murder investigation.
He also said that he and his deputies searched Mejia's former residence to try and catch him, but Mejia was nowhere to be found.
The sheriff issued a murder warrant for Mejia's arrest.
Mejia has several aliases including Nelbar Sanchez Bermudez and the nickname of Timbas.
A local crime fighting organization has offered a reward of up to $1,000 cash for Mejia's arrest.
The sheriff is asking for the public's help.
"We are asking for the Hispanic community to provide any help or information to apprehend the suspect," he said. "The suspect has had a prior arrest in 1993 and is considered armed and dangerous."
Anyone with information is asked to call the Wayne County Sheriff's Office at 731-1481 or Goldsboro-Wayne County Crime Stoppers at 735-2255.