Two Kinston attorneys slated to defend suspects in both 2010 murders

A local defense attorney appointed to represent two Kinston teens arrested months apart in 2010 on separate first-degree murder charges has requested a Lenoir County judge withdraw him from his most recent assignment.

James “Jimbo” Perry asked the court Tuesday to allow him to withdraw as the lawyer of 17-year-old Tiquon “Too Tall” Brown, one of two Kinston youths charged in the September homicide of 21-year-old Tyrone Collins.

Perry filed the motion due to a conflict of interest.

“Out of the context of each case, a lawyer strives to maintain a certain level of propriety,” Perry said. “If there is a common codefendant, that (poses a problem).”

In these two cases, the common codefendant is 18-year-old Jerrell Pridgen. Investigators with the Kinston Department of Public Safety believe Pridgen had a hand in the murder of Collins and Rasheed Jones, who was fatally shot five months earlier on Independence Street.

Perry already represents 17-year-old Kyliel Wade, the suspected accomplice of Pridgen in the death of Jones, also 17.

In a private jail cell hearing for both Brown and Pridgen Monday, Lenoir County District Court Judge Lonnie Carraway declared the two as indigent and appointed Perry to represent Brown and Mark Herring, of White and Allen, to defend Pridgen.

Herring is slated to represent Pridgen in both cases, which detectives with the Kinston Department of Public Safety remain mum about — only to say each were possibly gang related.

Perry was also appointed to double-up, appointed by Caraway to take on Brown’s murder charges as well as charges of attempted murder he has against him. Kinston police charged Brown in February with the near shooting death Neil Moore II on Independence Street as the Moore made his way home from a teen party held at a nearby night club.

Brown and Pridgen had their next court date set for March 21.

Nightclub owners at a forum held by the Lenoir County Crime Stoppers last week said they saw the once highly wanted fugitive at a “gang” party at the 258 bar and Billiards Feb. 27 — the same night Demetrius Jones, 20, was fatally shot outside the club.

Local and state authorities found Pridgen March 3 in Raleigh.

“We do not believe he had been back in town,” said Annette Boyd, assistant chief of Police for the KDPS, who dispelled claims Pridgen had any involvement in city’s most recent homicide. “On the way into town, he saw the new jail being constructed and was totally surprised, asking ‘What’s that?’ ”

The completion of the six-month manhunt sparked the arrest of Brown hours after city investigators interviewed Pridgen for 2010’s two homicides March 3.

The families of each of the homicide’s victims were happy to see progress.

“It is a good thing,” said Tanya Jones, the mother of Rasheed. “Hopefully, we may finally know the truth.”

Collins mother, Lisa Adams, agreed.

“I am glad they got the boys,” she said outside her home Tuesday at the Richard Green Housing Development, where paramedics found Collins lifeless at Adams’ back porch. Collins walked 200 feet after being shot near the Tiffany Road Railroad Crossing nearby.

Police have not announced who pulled the trigger in either homicide, but Adams said of Pridgen, “They got the trigger man.”

Family members of Brown and Pridgen were not available for comment, despite visits to the two’s home Tuesday by The Free Press.

Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.