UPDATE: Traffic stop led to McKamey arrest for Greer murder

By DEUCE NIVEN    
FRIDAY MORNING
    A traffic stop Thursday morning led to the arrest of James Edward McKamey for murder, and the recovery of victim Carol Smith Greer’s stolen 2012 Subaru Outback, a Whiteville Police Department spokesman said Friday morning.
    McKamey was driving the Subaru when the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office stopped the vehicle at about 9:15 a.m. Thursday near the Supply community, spokesman Hal Lowder said in a news release.
    McKamey’s wife, Rocky McKamey, was a passenger in the vehicle. Both were detained and taken to the Brunwick County Detention Center, James McKamey later taken to Whiteville, where police Thursday night charged him with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and two probation violation counts.
    Greer’s body was found in a storage building behind her Smyrna Road home Tuesday afternoon, nearly 24-hours after Reshonta Love told police he had stabbed her multiple times outside her West Nance Street home, just behind Greer’s house. Greer’s vehicle was missing. Whiteville Police took possession of the Subaru and took it back to Whiteville “to see if the events from the Reshonta Love stabbing and Carol Greer could be connected,” Lowder said.
    Whiteville detectives and the S.B.I. “are still investigating new leads in these cases,” Lowder said.
   Look for updates on this developing story later, and a full recap in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.

UPDATE: THURSDAY NIGHT
    James Edward McKamey was charged with the murder of Carol Greer Thursday, booked into the Columbus County Detention Center with warrants charging with a related assault case early this week also served.
    McKamey, 51, was held without bond, charged with first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, assault with a deadly with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and two probation violation counts.
    Greer, a beloved retired Whiteville Primary School music teacher, was killed Monday, her body discovered Tuesday afternoon in a storage building behind her Smyrna Drive home, the warrant obtain by Whiteville Police Department Detective Sgt. Aaron Herring said.
   McKamey is also accused of taking Greer’s 2012 Subaru, the dangerous weapon a knife.
   Reshona Love told police McKamey stabbed her multiple times in an altercation outside her West Nance Street home. She was able to driver herself to Columbus Regional Healthcare, with multiple stab wounds. Whiteville police obtained warrants in the assault on Love hours before a neighbor discovered Greer’s body, Tuesday afternoon.
    McKamey was listed as an absconder from probation/parole on North Carolina Department of Public Safety records prior to the events of this week. He was convicted in assault on a female cases in 2010 and 2012 in Brunswick County, sheriff’s records there show, and is awaiting trial on drug related charges in that county.
    Whiteville Police and prosecutors are expected to discuss details of the cases during a news conference Friday morning.

UPDATE: THURSDAY MORNING
    James Edward McKamey, facing felony assault charges in the stabbing of a Whiteville woman, has been taken into custody in Brunswick County, and the Subaru missing from a murdered neighbor’s home recovered, Whiteville Police Department spokesman Hal Lowder said Thursday.
    Specific charges against McKamey, 51, were not yet clear at mid-morning Thursday. Police have not formally identified McKamey as a suspect or person of interest in the murder of Carol Greer, whose body was discovered in a storage building behind her Smyrna Road home Tuesday afternoon.
    That discovery came less than 24-hours after Reshona Love was stabbed outside her West Nance Street home, just behind the Greer property.
    Love told police that McKamey had attacked her, repeatedly stabbing her in her car, before she was able to kick him from the vehicle and drive herself to the hospital.
    Detectives obtained warrants late Monday charging McKamey with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
    Brunswick County deputies took McKamey into custody Thursday morning, and held him at the Brunswick County Detention Center in Bolivia before handing him over to Whiteville detectives, Brunswick Sheriff’s spokeswoman Elizabeth Bynum said. McKamey is awaiting trial in Brunswick County on drug related charges, but had no active warrants in that jurisdiction, Bynum said.
    Look for updates on this developing story later today, and a full recap in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.

UPDATE
    Carol Greer, 65, has been identified as the victim of murder discovered in Whiteville Tuesday afternoon, Columbus County Assistant Coroner William Hannah confirming that she appeared to have been stabbed.
    Greer’s body was discovered in a small storage building behind her home off of Smyrna Road, Hannah said.
    Greer was a retired music teacher and widow of the late Mickey Greer, advertising director at The News Reporter in Whiteville, who died in 2012.
    An autopsy is expected to be performed at the Office of the State Medical Examiner in Raleigh on Wednesday, Hannah said.
   
Initial post
    Police are asking for cautious help from the public locating a vehicle that may have been stolen following a murder, city spokesman Hal Lowder Tuesday.
    A white Subaru Outback is missing from the Smyrna Road home of a 51 year-old woman whose body was discovered just before 4 p.m. Tuesday by a neighbor, Lowder said.
    Anyone seeing the vehicle, with a North Carolina license plate ZYV 5224, should immediately call 911.
    “We don’t want anyone approaching this vehicle, just call 911,” Lowder said.
    Whiteville Police are being aided by the SBI, Lowder said, and have not made a positive connection between the murder and a Monday afternoon stabbing just a bock over, on West Nance Street, Lowder said.
    Police earlier in the day issues an appeal to the public for help locating the suspect in the stabbing of Reshona Love, who was treated for multiple injuries at Columbus Regional Healthcare following a 5 p.m. assault Monday.
    James Edward McKamey, 51, is charged in warrants obtained by Detective Sgt. Aaron Herring with assault with deadly weapon with intent to kill in the case involving Love.
    Lowder could not verify an address for McKamey, but North Carolina Department of Public Safety records show him as an absconder from probation/parole supervision following a 2014 conviction in New Hanover County for obtaining property by false pretense. Jail records in Brunswick County indicate that McKamey has been arrested there at least twice, in September of 2014 and February of this year.