Two dead after Fayetteville shooting

Officers were called 52-C Cambridge Arms Apartments at 8:25 p.m., when they found Isaiah Manuel Sampeur, 25, and Pamela Ann Coe, 40, both of whom were pronounced dead at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

Investigators don't believe the killings were random, saying someone knocked on the apartment door and started a conversation with someone inside. The conversation ended with shots being fired.

Authorities haven't said how the two victims knew one another, but Sampeur's best friend, Jamal Cross, said Coe was like an aunt to Sampeur.

Cross said he also doesn't believe the shooting was random, because Sampeur would never have opened the door for someone he didn't know.

Other people were in the apartment, Cross added, and someone told him that Sampeur had been shot in the back.

"They sat there and turned him around. They didn't want him to sit there and see who shot him," Cross said Tuesday.

Cross also said he believes Sampuer could have survived if others in the apartment had called for help sooner.

"They said they sat there a while and waited to call the ambulance to come and pick him up," Cross said. "If they would have called them earlier, he might have would made it. His body went into shock."

Neither police nor Cross offered a motive for the shooting.

The Barcelona Drive apartment complex has been a well-known trouble spot. The city sued complex owners last year, claiming they were not doing enough to control crime there.

Authorities said Tuesday, however, that apartment management is complying with the city's request to improve security. It installed an iron fence around part of the complex, mounted security cameras near the entrances and posted signs encouraging residents to report suspicious activity.

In the past five years, at least three other homicides have been reported at the 700-unit complex, as have numerous burglaries, armed robberies, assaults, domestic disputes, drug deals and reports of gunfire.