Police charge man with shooting Chapel Hill resident in parking lot, stealing a car

A Charlotte man was arrested Friday in connection with a shooting Monday at the Ashley Forest apartments in Chapel Hill, police said in a news release.

Police responded to the 100 block of Ashley Forest Road around 9:10 p.m. Monday in response to a 911 call and found Elyjah Smith, 25, of Chapel Hill, with life-threatening gunshot wounds.

ABC11, The News & Observer’s media partner, spoke with a witness who said his roommate was shot after an argument in the apartment parking lot. Police said Smith was taken to UNC Hospitals, where he was listed in critical condition.

”He said he got a gun, so he come back inside,” Austin Drum told the news station. “But then he went back outside and they started arguing again and come back inside and I close the door, opened it up again and then he stood in the doorway and that’s when the shots were fired and I just seen him collapse fell on the ground. I tried to do the best I could.”

The apartment complex is off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, north of Estes Drive.

Chapel Hill Police investigators later identified a suspect, 27-year-old Kemonnie Drequan Eason, during their investigation, and charged him Friday with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling, assault by pointing a gun, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and larceny of a motor vehicle, police said.

Eason was being held in the Wake County Detention Center without bond, police said. The investigation is continuing.

Wake County records show Eason also is being held on a second charge from 2020 of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and also on charges related to misdemeanor and felony probation violations from 2019.

State corrections records show Eason was convicted in 2017 of possession of a firearm by a felon and common-law robbery charges in Mecklenburg County. He was released to parole in May 2018 after serving 17 months in prison, the records show.

In September 2019, he was convicted in Gaston County on charges of driving while impaired and possessing stolen goods, receiving a suspended sentence and probation.

Correction records show he stopped showing up for probation meetings at some point and was listed as an “absconder from probation/parole supervision.”

Anyone with information about Monday’s shooting can call 911 or contact the Chapel Hill Police Department at 919-968-2760 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Callers also can leave an anonymous tip by calling Chapel Hill-Carrboro-UNC Crimestoppers at 919-942-7515.