Suspects arrested in Dudley murder
By John Joyce
Published in News on October 7, 2015 1:46 PM
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The Wayne County Sheriff's Office has two in custody and is searching for a third suspect in the murder of Georgina Fajardo, 30, killed inside her home in Dudley Oct. 1 during a shoot-out following an attempted forced entry.
The arrests came Tuesday, after a break in the case Monday allowed investigators enough information to obtain warrants.
Maria Guadalupe Garcia, 20, of Clinton, and Arnulfo Ascensio, 22, of Warsaw, are each charged with an open count of murder and are being held in the Wayne County Detention Center without bond.
The name of the third suspect has not yet been released.
Both Garcia and Ascensio also face charges of discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling, attempted first-degree burglary and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
The killing took place at approximately 10:40 p.m. Thursday in a home off Arrington Bridge Road in Dudley.
Ms. Fajardo was at home with another adult male and four children when three suspects -- a female and two men, according to the initial report -- broke through a bedroom and bathroom window and began firing into the home.
Ms. Fajardo was struck in the head during the ensuing shoot-out, but no one else was injured, the report said. Ms. Fajardo was transported to Wayne Memorial Hospital where she later died, turning a home invasion and assault case into a homicide investigation.
The investigation -- being assisted by several outside agencies including the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, Wayne County Alcohol Beverage Control, The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Wilson Police Department and the Sampson and Duplin County Sheriff's Offices -- is ongoing.
No word has been released yet as far as motive.
"We aren't quite sure about that," Capt. Richard Lewis said.
Lewis said the additional law enforcement agencies were called in once it was determined that the suspects lived outside of Wayne County.
"When we started finding out they lived outside the county, we contacted these other jurisdictions," he said.
Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce, in a prepared statement, congratulated his detectives on a job well done for having put in extra hours over the weekend to try to close this case swiftly.
His highest praise, however, was for the community involvement in this case, without which he said the case would have taken much longer to solve.
"If it were not for concerned citizens coming forth with information about this case, it would have been a much longer and (more) extensive investigation," Pierce wrote. "Because of citizens' concerns, the detectives were able to bring closure to the family and quickly arrest those individuals responsible for this homicide," he said.