11/30/04 — Third man is arrested in 2003 home invasion

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Third man is arrested in 2003 home invasion

By Jack Stephens
Published in News on November 30, 2004 2:03 PM

Police have arrested a 19-year-old man who was wanted on charges involving the brutal home invasion of a Chinese restaurant owner and his wife and numerous armed robberies more than a year ago.

Curtis Arlandea Washington, who had Hookerton and Fayetteville addresses, was captured Sunday by Farmville police.

Curtis Arlandea Washington

Washington

Washington was charged by Goldsboro police with armed robbery, first-degree burglary and second-degree kidnapping in connection with the 2003 home invasion, robbery, assault and kidnapping of a Chinese couple in Goldsboro.

He was placed in the Wayne County Jail in lieu of a $1,810,500 secured bond.

Washington also was wanted on charges from Wilson, Johnston and Cumberland counties for similar offenses.

Washington was accused of barging into a home on Lockhaven Drive on Aug. 6, 2003, with two other men as the resident, Chang Wen Lin, returned from the China Star restaurant that he operated on Wayne Memorial Drive.

The three robbers tied up the couple and stole a video cassette recorder, a cell phone and cash, police said. One robber also assaulted the woman.

The other two men were arrested last year. Marcus Devon Bryant, 25, of Spring Lake and Dennis Earl Washington, 28, of Fayetteville, had been indicted on charges of first-degree burglary, armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, first-degree kidnapping and sexual assault.

More than 15 similar robberies of Asians and minorities were reported last summer in eastern North Carolina.

Bryant and Dennis Washington were arrested after law authorities from five other nearby cities and Johnston County had met in Kinston to swap information.

Bryant also was indicted on charges of robbing two shops last summer on U.S. 70 East -- the Old Quaker House Gift Shop on July 29 and the Olde Country Store on Aug. 11. Curtis Washington also was wanted in connection with those two holdups.

Just two weeks before the home invasion in Goldsboro, on July 24, another owner of a Chinese restaurant, Zhong Xi Fang, told police that two armed men entered her home on Rose Street and took the day's cash receipts from the China One and China King restaurants. No one has been charged in the crime.