FBI searches jail cell of suspect in robbery of slain Lake Wylie couple; materials seized
Less than three weeks before two people were arrested in connection with the October killings of a Lake Wylie couple, federal agents seized materials from the jail cell of one of the suspects in the robbery of the couple’s Charlotte mattress store, court documents show.
It is unclear what was taken Jan. 12 from the Mecklenburg County Jail cell of Jamell Cureton, 22, because the federal search warrant is sealed, court records show.
The seizure came just 17 days before police and prosecutors charged Malcolm Jarrell Hartley, 21, of Charlotte, and Briana Johnson, 19, of Concord, N.C., with two counts of murder in the Oct. 23 shooting deaths of Doug and Debbie London at their lakefront home in an exclusive Lake Wylie neighborhood.
Arrest warrants for Hartley and Johnson say evidence collected in the investigation, in addition to statements, led to their arrests.
While police and prosecutors have said the investigations of the murder and the robbery are connected, they have declined to say whether the crimes themselves are connected. They have acknowledged that federal agents began investigating the May robbery after the Londons were killed in October.
Authorities last week said the killings of Doug London, 63, and Debbie London, 61, stemmed from “another crime,” but they declined to comment further.
Cureton’s lawyer claims that some of the documents seized from his jail cell are protected under attorney-client privilege, court documents filed Monday show, and she wants the materials back.
Cureton was shot by Doug London, police and court documents allege, when Cureton and his brother and another man tried to rob the Mattress Wholesale Outlet on South Boulevard in Charlotte. Cureton and his brother, Nana Adoma, 19, have been in jail ever since. Court documents allege that Adoma confessed to being a lookout during the robbery. The third person, David Lee Fudge, 21, whom prosecutors say is a high-ranking affiliate with the Bloods gang, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in the robbery and was sentenced in North Carolina court to probation.
But on Jan. 22, Fudge was jailed again after federal prosecutors charged him in connection with the robbery under interstate robbery and gun laws. Cureton and Adoma were indicted by federal prosecutors in October for the robbery.
Documents filed in court show federal prosecutors admit that Cureton’s cell was searched, materials were taken, and copies of all of it were kept. But the documents don’t say what was taken from the cell, or why.
In court documents, Chiege Okwara, Cureton’s lawyer, said when she went to visit Cureton in jail on Jan. 26 – after seeing that Cureton, Adoma and Fudge had been indicted days before – Cureton told her that his cell was “stormed” by two FBI agents and six county corrections officers. Cureton claimed legal materials between him and Okwara, as well as a Bible, correspondence with family members and more, were taken.
Okwara, who said late last year Cureton could not have killed the Londons because he was in jail at the time, has asked a judge to order federal agents and prosecutors to return everything taken from his cell.
Federal prosecutors told Okwara that a separate team of prosecutors – called a “taint team” – reviewed the handling of the search and that none of the prosecutors handling the Charlotte robbery had seen or will see any materials that are protected by attorney-client privilege, court documents show.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte handling the federal prosecution of Cureton, Adoma and Fudge declined comment Tuesday. Okwara also declined to comment.
This story was originally published February 3, 2015 at 8:49 PM with the headline "FBI searches jail cell of suspect in robbery of slain Lake Wylie couple; materials seized."