Charlotte man said a masked gunman fatally shot his girlfriend. He lied, police say.
A Charlotte man told police that a masked gunman fatally shot his girlfriend in his car last week, but bloody footprints and other evidence showed otherwise, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The evidence led to the arrest of 25-year-old Charles Hodge Jr. in the killing of 23-year-old Jenyah Kishawne Skyye Wright just before 2 a.m. Friday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police detectives wrote in the affidavit.
Wright died of a gunshot wound after Hodge stopped his car in the 8100 block of Woodway Oak Circle, according to the affidavit. That’s off East Independence Boulevard.
MEDIC pronounced Wright dead at the scene, police said in a news release.
‘Wrestled over the gun,” man claimed to police
Police questioned Hodge at CMPD headquarters after the shooting.
According to the affidavit, Hodge told police he’d dated Wright for about two months when she went with friends to a bar the night of the shooting.
Hodge said he picked his girlfriend up after she called him for a ride home.
“He said he picked her up and they came back to her apartment to roll a blunt and talk about what they would do this weekend,” according to the affidavit.
Hodge told police he stopped his car in the middle of the street as the pair talked. A man wearing all black and a black mask knocked on the window, asked for a lighter and pointed a gun at him, Hodge said, according to the affidavit.
Hodge said he “wrestled over the gun” with the man, who shot twice into the car. He said he then called 911.
Bloody footprints, gun in woods
Waiting for police, Hodge said, he “walked around the area looking for someone to help him,” the affidavit states.
Police found bloody footprints leading from Wright to a grassy area, and discovered a Glock 40-caliber pistol nearby with a live round in the chamber.
While processing Hodge’s vehicle, officers also found a 40-caliber Hornady S&W DCC between the passenger seat and the center console, the court records said.
Police determined from Wright’s gunshot wound that someone in the car shot her “at close range.”
Hodge remained in the Mecklenburg County Jail without bond Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge, jail records showed.
