Defendant in NCCU student's slaying wants warrants thrown out
Attorneys for a Durham man accused of killing a North Carolina Central University student and leaving her body along Interstate 540 in Raleigh asked a judge Friday to throw out two search warrants in the case.
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Robert Lee Adams Reaves is charged with first-degree murder in the January 2008 stabbing death of Latrese Matral Curtis, 21.
Drivers found her body along I-540 near Louisburg Road on the morning of Jan. 30. She had been stabbed nearly 40 times in the head, neck, chest and stomach.
Attorneys George Kelly and Margaret Lunden argued before Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens that Wake County sheriff's deputies had no jurisdiction to serve the two warrants for Reaves' computers, because Reaves at the time lived in Durham.
Stephens, however, denied the defense's request, meaning the evidence from those searches will be allowed into evidence when the case goes to trial. A date has been set for the week of Sept. 21.
Wake County prosecutors say Reaves killed Curtis in a jealous rage because she was having a romantic relationship with his roommate.
According to search warrants, Curtis had gone to Reaves' house to see his roommate but that he was not home at the time. Prosecutors have said in court that Reaves then followed Curtis and killed her.
Reaves, who at the time was a minister at Cedar International Fellowship in Durham, has said he was at a church function the night Curtis was killed. Prosecutors have said police can prove he wasn't there.
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