Four charged in soldier's fatal shooting

Spc. Sergio Sanchez, 22, was just back from a tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed outside Sharky's Cabaret. Witnesses said Sanchez was outside the club, talking on his cell phone, when he came upon four or five men robbing three other soldiers in a parking lot off Blue Street.

Investigators said they don't believe Sanchez did anything to provoke the robbers. Witnesses told police that a gunman approached Sanchez and shot him in the neck at close range.

“He was acting as a designated driver,” Detective Terrance Phillips of the Fayetteville Police Department said. “He was on his way to the vehicle at the time and just happened to walk up on them as they were committing the crime.

“We have no idea whether he was trying to fight back or anything like that.”

Fayetteville homicide detectives followed up leads in Cumberland, Lee and Harnett counties for weeks until a Crime Stoppers tip led police to four men suspected of committing robberies in Sampson County.

James Anthony Carr, 24, of 291 David Park Lane in Roseboro, Jeriamiah Markee Clark, 16, of 2054 Claudes Drag Road in Roseboro, Roy Lee Hawk, 20, of 6614 Vaughn Road in Fayetteville, and Terrance L. Roberts, 18, of 2752 Woody Pine Lane in Salemberg, were each charged with one count of first-degree murder and four counts each of robbery with a deadly weapon and conspiracy.

"We talked to witnesses and people who knew these guys,” Phillips said. “We found that there was evidence that these were the suspects we were looking for.”

He refused to elaborate on the evidence linking the men to Sanchez's slaying or to identify which of the four investigators believe was the gunman.

All four were being held Monday in the Cumberland County Detention Center without bond. They were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon.

Sanchez, a member of the 82nd Airborne, had returned home from a 15-month deployment to Baghdad 29 days before the shooting. The Yuma, Ariz., native and Anniston, Ala., resident served as a computer-repair technician.