Victim's fiance possibly stalked

Affidavit submitted in Durham killing

DURHAM -- The woman accused of killing Denita Smith was stalking Smith's fiance, Jermeir Stroud, according to a statement included in a search warrant affidavit made public Tuesday.

It's the first official indication that Stroud, a Greensboro police officer, is the link between Smith, a promising N.C. Central University graduate student, and Shannon Crawley, the Greensboro 911 dispatcher accused of gunning down Smith on Jan. 4.

The new information comes from Durham Investigator S.M. Pate's Jan. 5 request for permission to search Crawley's car and home.

Early in the investigation, police were looking for the driver of a burgundy Ford Explorer seen leaving the apartment complex where Smith's body was found a short time later.

When interviewed, Stroud told police that Crawley, who he said had been "stalking him for a while," drove such a car, Pate said in the warrant request.

Stroud told police that Crawley had seen Smith before and could recognize her. Stroud and Crawley lived less than half-mile apart in a quiet north Greensboro neighborhood.

On the day Smith was killed, a groundskeeper at Campus Crossings Apartments in Durham told police he heard a gunshot at 8:18 a.m.

A minute later, the groundskeeper said he saw Crawley looking distraught walking from the back of the building where Smith's body was later found, Pate wrote in the court document.

He watched her get into the Explorer and then approached, the request said.

He got Crawley to stop the vehicle and asked whether everything was OK, the warrant request said.

"She just continued to cry," the warrant request said.

"He also asked if she had heard a gunshot and she shook her head 'yes,' at which time he said he was going to call the police."

She left the scene against the groundskeeper's protestations, the warrant request said.

He described the driver of the Explorer as a black female, about 5-foot-9, thin, in early to mid-20s.

That matched Stroud's description of Crawley, 27.

Crawley was questioned Jan. 5 and arrested and charged with murder Jan. 9. She is being held without bail at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. Records show she is being kept under "medical safekeeping."

Speculation about a love triangle as motivation for the shooting has swept message boards and the NCCU campus since Smith was found dead.

But police have not discussed suspected motives for the shooting, keeping with their tight-lipped handling of the case that rocked NCCU.

Several items were seized in a search of Crawley's vehicle and her home in Greensboro.

The warrant lists two items as "two gunshot residue kits."

That likely refers to tests of Crawley's hands to check for signs that she had recently fired a gun.

Other items taken include: Two of her work shirts from Guilford Metro 911, a Sprint phone bill, a computer tower, an envelope containing photos, a few e-mail printouts and one floppy disk.

Pate could not be reached to comment on what the significance of those items might be.

Smith, 25, received an undergraduate degree from NCCU and was a semester away from getting a master's degree in English.

She worked as a writer and photographer for the Campus Echo, the student newspaper. Students, faculty and administrators - from the chancellor on down -- have praised her as a hard-working student and a caring person.

Friends such as Sheena Johnson, who worked with Smith at the Echo, said Smith was excited about her engagement to Stroud.

Reached Tuesday, Johnson didn't want to comment directly on the new development in the case, saying only, "It's good to know that people are working to get to the bottom of this situation."