Convicted felon stands trial for 2015 beating death of Cary Dollar Tree employee

Luciano Mariano Andia, then 72, was found dead in his Toyota Corolla at the High House Crossing shopping center on N.C. Highway 55 on the morning of May 9, 2015. According to police and witnesses, Andia was known to arrive early for his shift at the Dollar Tree in that shopping center.

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A series of vehicles in that parking lot were broken into around the same time, and evidence from those vehicles connected Andia's death to a man with a long criminal record.

In searching for Andia's killer, police found a man on surveillance video using Andia's debit cards and driving a four-door car with distinctive discolorations on the hood and a pink-and-black child's car seat in the back seat. The identified the man as Dwight Anthony Blount, a man with previous convictions from second-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and felony breaking and entering.

A search of trash bins near Blount's home at 870 Buckingham Court in Cary turned up Andia's credit card, receipts and clothing linked to the purchases made using Andia's SECU debit card and "an object covered in a red dried liquid consistent with human blood" mixed in with trash that bore the names of Blount and his girlfriend, according to a search warrant.