Suspect Wanted in Durham Mall Slaying Surrenders to Police

Xavier J. Moore, 21, of Durham, had been wanted in the death of  22-year-old Keanan James Odom. Police did not say if Moore had been charged.

Odom was stabbed to death during an altercation inside the mall just before 5:45 p.m. Saturday, police said. The stabbing happened in front of a clothing store near Entrance Two.

Odom tried to leave the mall to get help and was taken by a personal vehicle to Duke University Hospital. Police did not say whether he died en route or at the hospital.

At about 8 p.m., officers escorted customers out of the mall and closed it. Police wanted to preserve crime scene evidence. The mall re-opened at noon Sunday.

In 2005, Moore was one of two men shot outside a Wendy's on Miami Boulevard. At the time of his death, Odom was out of jail on bond for two separate shooting deaths.

Odom was charged with killing 17-year-old Keshaun Patterson in April 2005. That same year, he was also charged in a drive-by shooting that killed another teenager.

Besides Odom, four other people have been killed or injured on Northgate Mall's property since 1999. In September of that year, Durham police caught a robbery suspect in the food court. During the confrontation, the suspect was shot in the neck with his own gun.

Two men shot each other during an attempted robbery in the mall's parking deck in September 2002. The mall imposed a curfew in the summer of 2003, banning teenagers from visiting without a chaperon on weekend nights.

In December 2005, two teenagers got into a fight on a city bus after Lamar Bass allegedly harassed Lazarren McLean's sister. The fight spilled over into the mall parking lot, where police said Bass shot and killed McLean. Bass is serving a life sentence for the murder.