5-23-06 UPDATE: One of the two suspects charged in connection to the murder of Curtis Jenkins is scheduled to be in court Tuesday afternoon. Adrian Morene is in custody in Kentucky. He is charged with killing Jenkins in his University area townhome on May 12. It's expected that extradition to North Carolina could come up at Tuesday's hearing. Harry James, 16, is also charged in Jenkins murder. Jenkins was mentoring James through his church.
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On Friday morning, police in Kentucky pulled over a 1999 Honda Civic driven by Harry Sharod James, 16, for traffic violations. Adrian Moren, 21, was in the passenger seat, but the car wasn't registered to either one of them- it was registered to Curtis Jenkins, of Charlotte.
According to a Kentucky State Police news release, officers found "suspicious items which may have been involved in a crime." KY Police called and asked CMPD to conduct a welfare check at 5978 Prescott Village Court- the home of the car's owner, Curtis Jenkins.
Police found 29 year old Curtis Jenkins murdered in his north Charlotte home. Family members have said that one of the murder suspects was a youth Jenkins tried to help. They said the police officers who informed them weren't sure which suspect Jenkins once worked with.
Both James and Moren are charged with murder and receiving stolen property. James is also charged with traffic violations.
According to an article in The Charlotte Observer, Curtis Jenkins (L) was a mentor in a University Park Baptist Church program aimed at helping young men avoid life's pitfalls. J enkins had already helped 10 teens "turn their lives around," Wilson said, adding that he was currently mentoring two or three more and wanted to become a minister.
Jenkins, a UNC Charlotte alumni, was single and had once worked for WBTV as a news assistant, but left that job in 2002. Minister Jacotron Potts, who oversees that ministry and others, said he couldn't recall when Jenkins first approached him about participating, but remembered him as "a great young man who wanted to share God's love. He was the kind of person who, if you asked him to go one mile, he'd go two."
Sources:
WBTV
News 14 Carolina (video)
The Charlotte Observer
WCNC