LUMBERTON — Lumberton police have identified a man who was shot to death on Monday night as being 49-year-old Reggie Copeland.
According to police Capt. Terry Parker, investigators, including Erich Hackney with the District Attorney’s Office, are following leads, but are also seeking the public’s help. Anyone with information is asked to call police Detective David Williford at 910-671-3845.
The shooting death follows two other shootings that occurred during armed robberies, one on Monday and one on Saturday.
According to Parker, at about 6:41 p.m. Copeland ran up to a car parked at 75 Jerome St. and told people there he had been shot. He then collapsed.
When officers arrived, they began CPR. Copeland was taken to Southeastern Regional Medical Center, where he died.
Parker said police believe Copeland was shot near a large canal on Carolina Avenue, about a block away. The only descriptive information was that two men are believed to have shot Copeland. No address for Copeland was available.
That shooting death occurred a few hours after Tyrell Stephens, 24, from the Fairmont area, was shot and robbed of his car at 4 p.m. Monday at Schoolview Mobile Home park.
Parker said the shooter is believed to be a black male who was accompanied by what appeared to be a white male and an American Indian female. Stephens said the three fled in Stephens’ 2003 white Lincoln.
Anyone with information is asked to call investigating Detective Evan Whitley at 910-671-3845.
In the other armed robbery, Parker said Marcus Leach, 29, whose address was unavailable to police, was shot at 7:20 p.m. Saturday inside a home on the 2200 block of Hedgepeth Circle in the Davis Heights community. The assailants, both men, robbed Leach and his girlfriend, whose name was not on the police report. The only descriptive information on the assailants was that they are both males.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Charles Keenum, the lead investigator in the case.
The injuries to Stephens and Leach were not life-threatening, according to Parker.
