Demery Bernard McLymore of Roseboro was found guilty Tuesday of carjacking and firearm charges during a robbery spree in Sampson County more than three years ago, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
A jury found McLymore guilty on four counts each of carjacking, possession of a firearm in furtherance of the carjacking, possession of a stolen firearm and possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon.
U.S. Attorney Robert J. Higdon Jr. said that evidence at trial showed that beginning in the afternoon of Sept. 3, 2016 and lasting into the early morning hours of Sept. 4, 2016 that McLymore committed a series of armed robberies involving a dozen victims. Three of the victims were able to identify McLymore during the trial based on having previously met him. Other victims were able to identify McLymore in court.
The events presented at trial began at around 8 p.m. Sept. 3, 2016 when McLymore and Ambrose Lassiter approached a group of six boys who were in a car that had parked at the Brantwood Court apartments in Roseboro. The boys, the oldest of which was 18, had gotten together to go to a party that evening. McLymore pulled out a silver handgun and ordered them out of the car. Lassiter tried to intervene, but backed away when McLymore threatened to kill everyone. McLymore then proceeded to rob the boys, holding the firearm to the neck of one boy and against the torso of two more. He collected a few dollars, a cell phone, and also took one boy’s shoes. McLymore then ordered the driver to take him and Lassiter to Clinton.
Not long after being dropped off in Clinton, McLymore approached a woman who was walking down the street in an area known as “the Block.” He showed her that he was carrying the silver handgun, and after walking with her for a few minutes, he pulled out the gun and walked her at gunpoint into an apartment where she had been headed. McLymore robbed the woman of a wristwatch. The woman was able to run out of the front door.
McLymore next appeared about a mile away at the Spirit convenience store in Clinton. There, he encountered two young men in a truck in the parking lot who were on their way out of town for a party. McLymore asked for a ride to his girlfriend’s residence on “the Block”, and the men agreed. Once at the girlfriend’s residence, McLymore claimed to have lost a pistol. As the men looked for the pistol, McLymore pulled out a shotgun belonging to the driver that had been on a rack in the truck. He pointed the gun at both men and then forced the passenger to walk down the road with him.
A couple blocks down the road, McLymore spotted two teenage boys and approached them. He pointed the shotgun at the boys’ chin and chests, then forced the passenger of the truck to check the boys’ pockets for money. McLymore then ordered the boys to strip to their underwear before he ran back in the direction of his girlfriend’s house.
Clinton Police Department officers at the time were investigating the earlier residential robbery. An officer spotted McLymore walking with a shotgun behind a house. With a tip from a neighbor, law enforcement tracked McLymore to the residence he had identified as his girlfriend’s house. They found him in a bedroom with a wristwatch, wadded up money, a shotgun shell, and over three dozen .380 caliber bullets in his pockets. Behind the house, officers found the stolen shotgun, loaded with three shotgun shells that matched the one found in McLymore’s pocket.
About Author
