ELIZABETHTOWN — One of two suspects accused of taking a car, purse and cellphone at gunpoint from a Bladen County school bus driver Monday was put in jail Friday afternoon.
Michael Darrell Smith, known to many as Pooh Daddy, was captured by U.S. marshals. Smith, 33, of 279 Raeford Road in Fayetteville, is accused of the armed robbery with a yet-to-be-identified woman alongside.
Smith was apparently seen in the Red Springs area soon after the robbery, bringing local lawmen into the investigation.
“I wish to thank all the law enforcement agencies that have helped on this case,” Sheriff Jim McVicker said in a news release. “This was a group effort and we could not have brought this man to justice without the help of Elizabethtown Police Department, Cumberland and Robeson County Sheriff’s Offices, North Carolina Department of Corrections and the U.S. marshals. So many times this type of cooperation between agencies is what it takes to bring criminals to justice.”
Lawmen said Smith and the woman, described as white with red hair, went to Elizabethtown Middle School on Monday morning. When the bus driver arrived, they told her their car was out of gas at the ramp for the U.S. 701 intersection with N.C. 87. The driver declined to help, leading to her car and belongings being stolen.
She drove her bus to the Sheriff’s Office to report the incident.
Marshals eventually tracked Smith to a relative’s home in Cumberland County.
He’s jailed on a probation violation, a felony as an absconder. In Bladen County he will face charges of second-degree kidnapping, possession of a firearm by a felon, robbery with a dangerous weapon and larceny of a motor vehicle.
The female accomplice was described as being white with red hair.
