Fayetteville NC July 1 2021

A Hope Mills man was arrested Thursday in the shooting death of a Fayetteville hotel security officer on June 5.

Dahsir Thomas Welch, 22, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Jerry Smothers, 63. Smothers was attacked as he worked at the Clarion Hotel on Cedar Creek Road June 5 and succumbed to his injuries June 13.

Jerry Smothers was shot during a robbery at the Clarion Hotel on Cedar Creek Road in Fayetteville just before 11 p.m. June 5. He languished on life support for more than a week before succumbing to his injuries June. 13.
An arrest was made Thursday in his killing.

A coworker found him just before 11 p.m. He’d been shot in the head and robbed of his wallet and his tan 2001 GMC Sierra.

Smothers’ truck was recovered June 8 in the woods off Elk Road near South View High School in Hope Mills, police said.

During the recovery of the stolen truck, an employee of the school told police of seeing a suspicious man in the area around the time the vehicle was located, according to information filed with the court in support of Welch’s warrant for arrest.

The document states police located Welch nearby, wearing a white tank top, black pants and sandals. It appears from the document that Welch was not detained at that time.

According to the court document, a receipt from a Dollar General in Hope Mills dated June 7 was found in Smothers’ truck along with a fingerprint that identified a man in Hope Mills.

During an interview with the person identified by the fingerprint, the man allegedly told investigators Welch had picked him up in a truck that matched Smothers’ stolen vehicle, according to the document.

When police showed the man surveillance footage from the Dollar General recorded at the time listed on the receipt, he identified Welch as the person in the video wearing a white tank top, black pants and sandals, the court documents said.

The document states that on June 9, Fayetteville police were notified that Hope Mills authorities were searching for a Chevy Silverado that was stolen the day before. The theft, which was caught on surveillance video, showed the thief as a man wearing a white shirt, black pants and sandals, court documents said.

While interviewing the man who said Welch picked him up, Fayetteville investigators spotted the stolen Silverado in the parking lot. Inside the Silverado, they found allegedly Welch’s fingerprint, the document states.

Welch was arrested June 14 on warrants from the Hope Mills Police Department alleging larceny, possessing stolen goods and buying/receiving stolen property in connection with the Silverado theft.

During an interview, according to the warrant information, Welch allegedly said he had been on Cedar Creek Road at the Sure Stay Hotel the night of the shooting and that he purchased Smothers’ stolen truck from a stranger between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Police note in the information that Smothers spoke to his wife on the phone around 9 p.m. the night he was shot. According to the document, surveillance video shows what appears to be Smothers’ truck heading toward Interstate 95 on Cedar Creek Road around 9:54 p.m.

Records from Welch’s cell phone also allegedly showed Welch traveling along Cedar Creek Road toward Interstate 95 at the same time as the truck, the document said.

Additionally, the document revealed, detectives interviewed several people who Welch claimed he was with on the night of the shooting, and one woman said she saw Welch with a handgun and reported that he asked her to help him steal a car but she refused.

Welch was additionally booked on the murder charge Monday afternoon and was being held without bail Tuesday in the Cumberland County jail.

Fayetteville Observer

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