Cary gives its police chief a take-home vehicle. One home is 180 miles away.

Nearly every month since Terry Sult’s hiring as Cary’s police chief, he’s logged hundreds of miles driving an assigned “take-home” vehicle — a black 2022 Ford F-150 hybrid pickup. At least some of those trips, a town official confirmed, are to his home in Lincoln County, 180 miles away.

It’s an unusual arrangement that wasn’t made public when then-Cary Town Manager Sean Stegall hired Sult to be the interim police chief in October 2021, and then made him the permanent chief nine months later. From that point on, Sult was required to have a residence in Cary, town records show.

The Lincoln County residence is one of two spacious homes Sult owns in the greater Charlotte area. He is registered to vote at the nearly 3,300-square-foot home in Iron Station; he and his wife both voted from there in the 2024 general election. His 2,400-square-foot home along Lake Norman in the Mecklenburg County town of Cornelius is also the address of a cybersecurity business he co-owns with his son, Lee, who is an expert in the field.

How much time Sult spends at his homes as far as a nearly three-hour drive is unknown. His boss, interim Town Manager Russ Overton, confirmed that the chief notifies him when he travels to the home, but he didn’t know how often that has happened.

“I know there are some weekends he is spending out there, yes,” Overton said. “Typically when the chief travels out of town, he will let me or some of the other assistants know.”

Overton doesn’t see an issue with it, he said.

“There’s never been an instance where we’ve called on the chief and he’s not readily available,” Overton said.

Sult confirmed the residences in a text message, but said he lives in Cary. He said he would “make no further statements” about them. Overton said Sult is renting a place in town.

Sult’s son said his father is “not active” in the cybersecurity business and offered no further comment.

Take-home vehicle mileage

Cary records show that in the past 40 months, Sult has put more than 41,772 miles on his assigned vehicle at a cost of $5,800 in fuel and maintenance. But those records do not show where Sult is driving those miles.

Overton said Sult would be allowed to drive that vehicle to and from his homes in Lincoln and Mecklenburg counties.

“His deal was a kind of a take-home car or a vehicle, so I’m sure he drives it,” Overton said. He noted that in three of those months, town records show no miles driven, but in 20 of those months the chief drove more than 1,000 miles.

It is not unusual for police chiefs to live outside of the communities they serve, particularly wealthy towns on the coast or in the mountains, where their salaries aren’t enough to afford buying a home, said Bill Hollingsed, executive director of the N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police. Sheriffs, on the other hand, are elected officials required by state law to live in the counties they serve.

Hollingsed said he was unaware of any chiefs having a residence that far from the communities that hired them.

“Where this originates is with the city manager and the city council with their requirements of what they want of their department heads,” he said.

Jennifer Robinson, a former longtime town council member who left the board in November, said she and other council members knew that Sult stays in Cary during the week and spends his weekends with his family at his Lincoln County home. She also had no problem with it and said she and other council members were happy that Stegall made Sult the permanent chief, passing over “three or four” finalists.

“We felt that he’s an exceptional police chief and having him living in an apartment here five days a week was worth it to us,” she said.

She said she did not know whether the town informed the public that Sult might not be around on the weekends.

Sult’s leadership also drew praise from Sarika Bansal, who was elected to the board in late 2023, after he had been hired. But she did not know he had homes in the Charlotte area, and assumed he lived in the town or nearby, she said.

“I have never seen him not be available,” Bansal said.

Mayor Harold Weinbrecht did not respond to an interview request.

Town management decision

Robinson said the decisions regarding any living arrangements and town vehicle use for Sult would have been made by Stegall or his deputy managers. Stegall is now the subject of a criminal inquiry after questions surfaced about his spending. He resigned in December, a month after the council put him on administrative leave, and could not be reached for comment.

State pension records from 2024, the most recent year available, show Sult was better paid that year than the police chiefs in neighboring Raleigh and Durham, which have far more people and much larger departments. Both cities also have more crime compared with Cary, a suburb of 190,000 that abuts Research Triangle Park.

The records show the town increased Sult’s salary in 2024 to just over $250,000 and paid him a $12,500 bonus, bringing his total pay to more than $262,000. Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson was paid just under $233,000 that year. Durham Police Chief Patrice Andrews received a little over $217,000.

Sult, 68, has a lengthy law enforcement career. He spent 27 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, where he rose to the rank of captain, according to a bio on Cary’s website. He has served as police chief in Gastonia; Sandy Springs, Georgia; and Hampton, Virginia.

Cary records show Sult was paid $222,820 when hired as interim in October 2021. The town made him temporary chief in March 2022, which made him eligible for town benefits. In both cases, the town agreed to pay his living expenses, including furnishings.

Cary has yet to produce records reflecting those expenses. The N&O requested them March 24.

When Sult agreed to become permanent chief, the town required him to obtain a residence in Cary, and paid him a $5,000 bonus for relocation expenses. The town also stopped paying separately for his ongoing living expenses in August 2022, the records show. Overton said Sult is not required to report what expenses he incurred in the move.

Surveillance probe

Sult was not the police chief when Stegall was spotted by Cary detectives at a small motel they suspected was being used for drug dealing. He briefly met with a man suspected of selling drugs, and detectives followed Stegall’s car back to his home. That was in 2016, less than a month after Stegall had been hired.

Stegall’s visit to the motel wasn’t known publicly until Feb. 12, when the town released a report of the surveillance in response to a News & Observer public records request.

In a news release, Sult cleared Stegall of any wrongdoing in connection to the surveillance.

“No charges were ever brought against Mr. Stegall in this matter, and there’s nothing in my inquiry that warrants further action,” Sult wrote.

Two detectives involved in the surveillance remain on the Cary police force. No information has been made public regarding their recollections of the case.

Sult declined an N&O request for an interview, but later told WRAL that he was trying to reconstruct what happened to the case as part of a joint review with the State Bureau of Investigation. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman added the drug investigation to SBI’s financial probe.

“We’re just trying to fill in the gaps as best we can,” Sult said. “I am in the process of conducting an internal inquiry that looks at the processes and procedures of what was done back then and making sure that when we made a number of process corrections after I got here that [it] will fill in any gaps that may have occurred.”

The N&O sought to determine if any arrests had resulted from the motel surveillance, which began on Aug. 25, 2016. The town said it had no arrest reports mentioning the hotel in the seven months following the surveillance. It also had no recordings of radio calls related to the surveillance, and no follow-up reports.

Two police experts told The N&O the drug investigation needs to be probed further. Among their concerns: a lack of information explaining what police and other town officials did after finding Stegall at the motel. They said the case should have been turned over to an outside agency once Stegall, who as town manager oversaw the police department, showed up at the motel.

Overton, who was a deputy manager at the time, said he did not know about the case until The N&O requested the police records on Jan. 15. He later told town employees in an email that the records “appear to tell an incomplete story of what, if anything, was uncovered by surveilling the former town manager or others under watch.”

He said last week that he has not sought to talk with officials who may have been involved in the case.

This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 5:00 AM.

Dan Kane

The News & Observer

919-829-4861

Dan Kane began working for The News & Observer in 1997. He covered local government, higher education and the state legislature before joining the investigative team in 2009.