Police To Go Door-to-Door for Clues in Student's Slaying

DURHAM, N.C. — Police plan to canvass an apartment complex where a North Carolina Central University graduate student was killed last week, hoping to turn up new leads in the case.

Denita Monique Smith, 25, of Charlotte, was shot to death last Thursday at the Campus Crossings Apartments complex on East Cornwallis Road. A maintenance worker found her body at the bottom of a stairwell.

In recent days, police have talked with more than a dozen people, including Smith's family, friends and neighbors. They also questioned a woman seen driving away from the complex the morning Smith was murdered, although they declined to release any information about her.

On Monday, investigators went to Greensboro to serve search warrants connected with the case, sources told WRAL.

More than a dozen officers and community leaders plan to go door-to-door Wednesday evening to instill a sense of calm in the area and to look for more evidence in the crime.

"When you have a tragedy like this occur, it's very upsetting to people who live there," said Rob Faggart, coordinator of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federally funded program run by the Durham Police Department.

The "community response" canvass is intended to provide information about the investigation to neighbors and hopefully garner information from them, Faggart said.

"Folks don't realize what they know is important until they start talking with someone about it," he said.