Man charged in July 4 slaying; APD gives details **With video**

The Asheville Police Department has charged Steven Gordon Shultz with stabbing Frederick Garfield McLeod in the Beaucatcher Cinemas parking lot on Tunnel Road. McLeod later died from his wounds. In a press conference Monday morning, Capt. Tim Splain asserted that McLeod was a crack-cocaine dealer and that the stabbing happened during a drug deal.

“We interviewed between 10 and 15 individuals, most of them people we were able to establish had conversations or contact with [McLeod] in the hours prior to his death,” Splain said. “Through those contacts and information we were able to determine that Frederick McLeod was a fairly prolific crack-cocaine dealer in the east Asheville and eastern Buncombe County area. He was part of a small criminal organization that we weren’t much aware of, but he was very, very busy.”

After he was stabbed in the chest, around 11:16 p.m. on the night of July 4, McLeod went to get help from theater employees, who called 911. McLeod died at Mission Hospitals. After their investigations, police charged Shultz with first-degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon. He’s currently being held without bond.

Splain said that 17 detectives and the entire forensics division worked around the clock to solve the case, and that Shultz has “confessed, on some level, to being in the car and stabbing McLeod and robbing him of his crack cocaine.”

Asked to clarify what he meant by “confessed, on some level,” Splain clarified that “most people do not confess fully; he made admissions that put him in the car, stabbing Mr. McLeod, but the exact circumstances are a little different from what we believe them to be. That’s as much detail as I can get into.”

He added that Shultz came to the APD voluntarily and submi

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5 thoughts on “Man charged in July 4 slaying; APD gives details **With video**

  1. William P Miller

    If the APD would follow Carl Mumpower’s lead and spend more time in drug crime investigation, these incidents would lessen. What is the APD doing with at least 2 of it’s squad cars during the daytime? Sitting at speed traps on I-240 east and I-40 west. APD, leave the traffic to the highway patrol and protect our streets!

  2. RingoStarchy

    “There were no barrages of fireworks shot at public-safety officials.”

    LOL. When did this happen?

  3. Cheshire

    Okay, that’s creepy. I go to that theater more than most. Glad I went to see fireworks after work that day instead of a movie. I wonder if this is why the fire trucks screamed out of the station a little while before the fireworks started?

  4. BennyGlove

    Cheshire – the lesson to be learned here is not to be some scumbag dealer or buyer of illicit drugs. Not to not go to the movies because there is a parking lot there in which something like this might happen less often than lightning strikes. HEll, for that matter, why dont you not frequent any parking lots. That’s probably the best solution to avoid being stabbed in a car while dealing coke.
    And when did that happen? Hopefully they didnt succomb to “excited delirium” that wasn’t resulatant from the barrage of tasers, er… uh… i mean fireworks.

    http://www.excited-delirium.com

  5. Cheshire

    Wow. That’s one hell of a jump in logic, BennyGlove. I was merely stating that I’m glad I went to the fireworks instead of a movie on that particular night. The reason for this statement is that it was (literally) a coin toss between the two. In no way did I imply or state that this would keep me from going to the movies. If I were that easily spooked, I would have had an anxiety-induced heart attack years ago.

    You assume WAY too much.

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