Two Leflore County men have been charged in connection with a robbery at Skelton’s U-Haul on Grenada Boulevard on Monday that left two women hospitalized with stab wounds.
An unidentified third suspect, who drove the men to the store, is still being sought.
Cory D. Taylor, 27, 11002 N. Mississippi 7, and Jeremy Jermaine Carter, 22, of County Road 392, just outside Itta Bena, have been charged with attempted capital murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, said Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks.
Both Taylor and Carter were out on parole at the time of the robbery and likely will be taken back into custody by the Mississippi Department of Corrections to await trial, Banks said. They remained in the Leflore County Jail this morning.
The hunt for the two, which ended Tuesday morning with their arrests in separate incidents, was exhausting, the sheriff said.
“We had to do a lot of legwork to get it solved,” he said.
Banks said Taylor, Carter and their driver left Itta Bena Monday planning a robbery and armed with a pair of knives. They stopped at a Greenwood store with the intention of robbing it, but customers were in the store at the time, the sheriff said.
Then the pair were dropped off at Skelton’s U-Haul.
Thinking the store had a safe, Taylor and Carter entered around 2 p.m. by kicking in the front door, Banks said.
Once inside they encountered Melanie Riley, one of the owners of the business, and Lori Wixon.
Taylor and Carter cut and stabbed both women in the face and repeatedly struck them. Both women remained hospitalized from their wounds this morning, according to Banks.
The men left the store with $110 in cash, but once outside, they found that the driver of the getaway car was nowhere to be seen. “They got their wires crossed,” Banks said.
Leaving one of their knives stuck in a U-Haul trailer at the scene, the men fled on foot north on Grenada Boulevard, the sheriff said. The men then dropped the other knife and some of the clothes they were wearing in a garbage can on Elizabeth Street,
Banks said. The two victims’ cellphones were also recovered.
The men then went to a friend’s house and got a ride back to Itta Bena. The friend is not a suspect in the robbery, Banks said.
The sheriff said one of the victims gave investigators a good description of one of the men.
“She had remembered seeing him in Itta Bena,” Banks said.
Banks ran the lead down and received enough information from a store owner in Itta Bena to identify one of the suspects.
Taylor was apprehended while in a vehicle on Sunflower Road Tuesday morning. Carter was found hiding under a bed at his residence a short time later, the sheriff said.
Banks said attempted capital murder, a relatively new state statute, can be applied when someone commits a robbery and another felony, such as a stabbing, during the course of the robbery. This is the first instance in which attempted capital murder has been used in the county.
If convicted, the men could face life in prison for the attempted capital murder charge and also for the armed robbery charge.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
