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| Officer, motel owner recount events |
The Super 8 motel is seen Monday on Memorial Boulevard in Henry County. The Henry County Sheriff’s Office arrested Marcos Gonzalez at the motel around 3:30 a.m. Monday. He is charged in North Carolina with four counts of murder in connection with a shooting there Sunday outside a television store. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray) |
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009
By GINNY WRAY AND MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writers
The man captured in Henry County early Monday in connection with the slayings of four people in Mount Airy, N.C., the previous day was not the person who rented the motel room where he was found.
Marcos Chavez Gonzalez of 146 S. Ridge Road, Mount Airy, was taken into custody at 3:50 a.m. Monday at the Super 8 motel on North Memorial Boulevard, according to officials with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office. An arrest report there lists his age as 26; however, The Associated Press has reported that Gonzalez is 29.
“We do know he got a ride to that location (the motel), and he was there under an assumed name,” said Lt. Kimmy Nester of the sheriff’s office.
The person who gave him the ride did not stay after dropping him off, said Nester, adding that authorities are examining that person’s role in the situation as part of their ongoing investigation.
He and Henry County Sheriff Lane Perry declined to say more about that person.
Ben Patel, manager of the Super 8, said a white male rented the room around 11 or 11:30 p.m. Sunday.
But that man was not present about three hours later when Gonzalez surrendered to police from the motel room, Patel said.
“We think he got the room for somebody else, put him in it and left,” Patel said later Monday.
Patel was on duty at the motel Sunday night when the man, whose name he declined to give, checked in. He said he knew immediately that something was wrong because the man gave an incorrect name and address when registering.
“It’s normal procedure when checking in” to verify a guest’s name and address, Patel said. “We don’t go by his word.”
When the man showed his identification, Patel said he asked why he had put down the wrong information.
“He was shaking,” Patel said, as he then wrote down the correct information on the registration.
The man said he wanted to rent a room for two nights for now but he had a work crew coming into the area for a construction project and might need the room for a longer stay, Patel said.
He said the man was given a second-floor, single room because there was no indication there would be two people staying there.
“Somebody must have went behind him without us knowing it,” Patel said.
The man then came back to the front desk and asked Patel for a pen so he could write down the crew members’ names, Patel said.
He took the pen and went back to the room, said Patel, adding that he thinks the man then left the scene.
Authorities transported Gonzalez back to Surry County, N.C., on Monday, Perry said.
He said local and Virginia authorities learned that Gonzalez was in the area, and maybe at the motel, from North Carolina authorities and a tip from “a concerned citizen.” He would not elaborate on that person or the tip.
Nester said Gonzalez told him “in loose conversation that he was in construction work.”
Henry County authorities did not immediately know whether Gonzalez is in the United States legally.
Mount Airy Police Chief Dale Watson did not return a phone call for comment.
Participating in Gonzalez’s capture were 15 to 20 Henry County officers, four Martinsville Police Department officers and one Virginia State Police officer, according to sheriff’s office Lt. R.E. Walker.
Gonzalez was arrested on a fugitive warrant from North Carolina on four first-degree murder charges from that state, Walker said.
No weapons were found on the suspect or in the motel room, said Nester.
Perry and Nester said local authorities do not know why Gonzalez came to the Martinsville area after fleeing Mount Airy.
Nester said Gonzalez “claims he’s never been here before.”
He said authorities arrived at the motel about 2 a.m. and were there for most of the overnight hours Monday.
Law-enforcement officers positioned themselves in and around the motel and secured every exit, Nester said.
Each floor of the building was “totally locked down,” he said.
As requested by the officers, Patel said, he got guests out of the four rooms that were occupied on the motel’s second floor.
People were scared, he said, as was he.
Nester said he called Gonzalez’s room from a phone in the motel’s office. He declined to recall his exact conversation with the suspect due to the ongoing investigation. However, he said Gonzalez “began to cooperate with us after a few minutes” of conversation.
He said he did not know how long he and Gonzalez talked on the phone.
“We talked a considerable amount of time, but it wasn’t hours and hours,” Nester said.
Yet during the conversation, “we got him to admit that he was the person they (police) were looking for” and persuaded him to surrender, Nester said.
“He was actually shocked” that authorities caught up with him so quickly, Nester added.
Gonzalez was given a step-by-step outline of commands to follow while surrendering so he would know what to expect and he and the officers — some of whom were positioned outside his room — would not get hurt, according to Nester.
The suspect was wearing a dark-colored T-shirt, jeans and black bedroom-type shoes when he surrendered, Walker said.
“The negotiator told him to step outside with his hands up behind his head,” and he did that, Patel said.
“He came out and did what was expected of him” to comply with officers’ commands, Nester said. “It went as good as we expected.”
“The key thing” in getting Gonzalez to surrender, he said, was “developing an understanding” of what was expected of the suspect and that his “only option was to cooperate.”
Patel said no similar incident has occurred at the Super 8, and he added that he always cooperates with police when asked.
“The management at the motel was extremely helpful,” Nester noted. |
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