By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
A Rockingham woman has been charged with first-degree murder after the man she allegedly stabbed crashed his vehicle while trying to drive himself to the hospital.
Shanita Love, 28, has been placed in Richmond County Jail and held without bond.
Shanita Love
Officers with the Rockingham Police Department responded Thursday at approximately 11 a.m. to a report of a traffic accident with injuries on Rockingham Road in front of the National Guard Armory. Police and FirstHealth EMS personnel, along with Rockingham Fire Department, responded to the scene.
First-responders quickly determined that Lee Charles Covington, 51, of Rockingham, had injuries to his chest area that were not constant with the wreck. Covington was taken to FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead after Emergency Department personnel confirmed that he had been stabbed.
Rockingham Police Department officers, assigned by Richmond County sheriff’s deputies and the North Carolina State Bureau of investigation, investigated the incident and processed the scene and it was determined the assault had occurred at 271 Shannon Drive, off Biltmore Drive.
Law enforcement officials executed a search warrant. Police said that Love turned herself in to police a few hours after the initial incident.
Love has a connection to a previous murder. In March 2008, her boyfriend Demario Atwater Jr. and his friend, Alvin Lovette Jr., were charged in the kidnapping, robbery and shooting death of Eve Carson in Hillsborough. WRAL reported at the time that Love testified she was with Lovette and Atwater three days after the murder when the pair disposed of the gun.
