William Dillard Powell - Victim and Crime Description

Victim and Crime Description

Mary Gladden was an employee of The Pantry on Charles Road in Shelby, North Carolina. She was killed on October 31, 1991, while on duty at The Pantry. On that day between 3:15 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Scott Truelove bought $5 worth of gasoline at The Pantry. While paying at the counter, he stood near a rough-looking man with unkempt, shoulder-length hair, facial hair, and a tattoo on his left forearm.

The next morning, November 1, Truelove read about the murder and gave a description of the man to Captain Ledbetter of the Shelby Police Department. On November 16, Truelove identified Powell as the man by picking him out of a photographic lineup.

At approximately 4:15 a.m. on October 31, Clarissa Epps stopped at The Pantry to buy gasoline. She went in to pay for her purchase and after waiting in vain for a clerk to appear, called out but received no answer. Epps, after seeing Gladden lying in blood behind the counter, drove home and called police.

On October 31, in response to a radio dispatch, Officer Mark Lee of the Shelby Police Department arrived at The Pantry at 4:26 a.m. Lee first ensured that all customers had left the store and then found Gladden behind the counter. She was lying on her back in a pool of blood with her head toward the cash register and her hands at her sides. Lee noticed injuries to her left eye and ear as well as other injuries to her head. He also saw a one-dollar bill on the floor near her left foot and another on the counter.

Dr. Stephen Tracey, who performed the autopsy, testified that Gladden had numerous lacerations on her head and that her skull was fractured in several places. Gladden’s nose was broken and her left eye had been displaced by a fracture to the bone behind it. Her brain had hemorrhaged, was bruised and lacerated in several places, and contained skull fragments. Tracey determined that blunt trauma to the head caused Gladden’s death and that she died from the trauma before she lost a fatal amount of blood. He also concluded that human hands had not inflicted the wounds, surmising from their size and shape that the perpetrator had used a lug-nut wrench, a tire wrench, or possibly a pipe.

Mark Stewart, an employee of The Pantry, testified that he worked on both October 27 and November 1. On October 27, Stewart saw a tire tool behind the counter to the side of the cash register. The tool had lain there for approximately one year. It was curved on one end with a round hole for a lug nut and was split on the other end for hubcap removal. Stewart noticed that the tool was missing when he worked on November 1.

Thomas Tucker, a district manager of The Pantry, testified that he arrived at The Pantry sometime after 6:00 a.m. on October 31. He examined the cash register tape for that morning and it showed, among other transactions, a gasoline sale of $5 at 3:29 a.m. and a no-sale at 3:35 a.m. The cash register enters a no-sale when it is opened but no purchase is made. According to the tape, no transaction occurred between the $5 purchase and the no-sale. Tucker opened the register at 6:22 a.m. at the direction of Captain Ledbetter to determine whether any money had been taken during the homicide. He concluded that approximately $48 was missing.