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Cold case murder arrest is made

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun, Aug 21, 2006

DURHAM -- Durham police have charged a long-time suspect in the case with murder in connection with the 2001 strangulation death of Shirley Pounds, a 61-year-old woman who lived on DaVinci Street in the Kerrwood neighborhood.

The suspect, Webster O'Neal Steele, 40, of 1011 DaVinci St., was arrested at a state prison Monday and taken to the Durham County Jail, where he was being held without bond. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance in connection with the case this morning.

Steele also faces a charge of felonious breaking and entering that accuses him of breaking into Pounds' home at 803 DaVinci St. on Aug. 22, 2001, with the intention of committing a larceny.

Monday's arrest came nearly five years to the day after Pounds' grandson found her dead inside the home. Police initially believed that she died of natural causes, but began investigating the case as a homicide after hearing the results of an autopsy.

Steele became a suspect soon after when he was caught with Pounds' 1993 Hyundai Sonata, which was among several items that had been stolen from her house. But he claimed at the time to have gotten the car from an unidentified man named "JJ," and investigators weren't able to tie him clearly to Pounds' death.

That changed recently when the Durham Police Department's homicide unit reopened the case, assigned new investigators to it and developed "other leads," Police Chief Steve Chalmers said, without elaborating.**

"Right now, we're not in a position to discuss exactly what led to the information and evidence to bring about the case," Chalmers said when pressed on the matter.

The arrest was welcome news to Pounds' family.

"We are all elated," said Virginia Richmond, Pounds' daughter. "It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here, thank the Lord."

N.C. Department of Correction records show that since 1992, Steele, a native of Wilson, has been to state prison six times. Before Monday, he'd been arrested a total of 55 times since his 16th birthday in 1982.

Steele is in the midst of serving a 26- to 32-month sentence on unrelated charges of felony breaking and entering and possession of burglary tools. The charges in that case date from last summer, and he began serving his sentence on March 29.

Police arrested Steele Monday at the Tillery Correctional Center in Halifax County.

He has also done time in state prison for charges of assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon and larceny.

Steele pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing stolen goods in connection with his having Pounds' car. Department of Correction records indicate that he served his sentence in that case in the Durham County Jail.

Police said Monday that they believe Webster and Pounds were acquainted. Their homes were about two blocks apart.

Pounds was a graduate of Hillside High School and worked as a licensed practical nurse at Duke University Hospital for about 20 years until she went on disability in 1996 because of back problems.

Her relatives have said they think she was outside of her house reading her Bible shortly before her death. A witness told police in 2001 that a dark-complexioned black man knocked on the front door of the house, and then walked around to the side. The man later emerged from the rear of the house and drove off in Pounds' Hyundai.

Investigators showed the 2001 witness two different photo lineups, but the witness was unable or unwilling to identify a suspect.

Police said in 2002 that they thought Pounds knew her assailant because they found no signs of forced entry in the house, and little to indicate that there had been a struggle.

In addition to the Hyundai, a Magnavox videocassette recorder and a Sony PlayStation 1 video-game console were stolen from the house.

Steele's arrest warrant, filed by police Cpl. Sheldon Perkins, didn't indicate whether Steele is being charged with first- or second-degree murder. A charge of first-degree murder would carry with it the possibility of a death sentence.

Richmond said she met with Perkins and another investigator, Sgt. Jack Cates, about a month ago after contacting Chief Chalmers to "see what was going on" with the probe in her mother's slaying.

Perkins and Cates told her that they'd reviewed the file on her mother's death and would pursue it, with Perkins doing most of the work. "They told us basically the old detectives that had the case did bungle it, but they were going to look into and do the best they could to resolve it for us," Richmond said.

Later, they called and said there was one person they needed to talk to who would "give them the answer of where they needed to go," Richmond said.

Eventually, the witness "gave them the answers they needed" to ask for a warrant and charge Steele, Richmond said.

Richmond praised the work of Perkins and Cates.

"The first crew didn't do crap. These officers here did an excellent job," she said, adding that police wanted to act before the five-year anniversary of Pounds' death. "I told the chief these officers restored my faith in the Durham Police Department. We've got some peace now."

District Attorney Mike Nifong said Monday that he hadn't seen a report or been briefed on the case. The phrasing of the warrant was standard and left open the possibility of a first-degree murder charge, he said.

Steele's arrest is the seventh recorded this year by Durham police in a so-called "cold case." Nifong said the department's work bucks the once-common assumption in the law-enforcement trade that if an arrest didn't come within two or three months of a homicide, there wasn't much chance one would ever be made.

"They've really done a remarkable job with that whole procedure," Nifong said, referring to the homicide unit's efforts to clear cold cases. "The people in the Police Department working with those cases have shown a lot of energy and dedication, and the results do speak highly of them."

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-762993.html

** Da Vinci St. Another old haunt of Crystal.