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Press Release
Press Release
RALEIGH — United States Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced that yesterday in federal court, DEMERY BERNARD MCLYMORE, a resident of Roseboro, North Carolina, was convicted in a two-day jury trial before United States District Judge James C. Dever, III. The jury found MCLYMORE guilty of each of four charged counts: Carjacking, Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance of the Carjacking, Possession of a Stolen Firearm, and Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition by a Felon.
The evidence at trial showed that beginning in the afternoon of Saturday, September 3, 2016, and running into the early morning hours of the next day, the defendant DEMERY MCLYMORE committed a series of armed robberies, involving a dozen total victims. At trial, three of the victims were able to identify MCLYMORE based on having previously met him. Those victims and several others were able to identify him in court.
The events presented at trial began at around 8:00 p.m. on that Saturday night, when MCLYMORE and another man, Ambrose Lassiter, approached a group of six boys who were in a car that had just parked at the Brantwood Court apartments in Roseboro. The boys, the oldest of which was 18, had gotten together to go to a party that evening. MCLYMORE pulled out a silver handgun and ordered them out of the car. Lassiter tried to intervene and push him away from the boys, but backed away when MCLYMORE threatened to kill everyone. MCLYMORE then proceeded to rob the boys, holding the firearm to neck of one boy, and against the torso of two more. He collected a few dollars, a cell phone, and also took one boy’s shoes. MCLYMORE then ordered the driver to drive him and Lassiter to Clinton, North Carolina. The boy did so as MCLYMORE sat in the passenger seat with the gun on his lap.
Not long after being dropped off in Clinton, MCLYMORE approached a woman who was walking down the street in an area of Clinton known as “the Block.” He showed her that he was carrying the silver handgun, and after walking with her for a few minutes, he pulled out the gun and walked her at gunpoint into an apartment where she had been headed. MCLYMORE proceeded to rob the resident of a wristwatch at gunpoint, but the woman was able to run out of the front door.
MCLYMORE next appeared about a mile away at the Spirit convenience store in Clinton. There, he encountered two young men in a truck in the parking lot, who were stopping by the store on their way out of town for a party. MCLYMORE asked for a ride to his girlfriend’s residence on the Block, and the men agreed. Once at the girlfriend’s residence, MCLYMORE claimed to have lost a pistol. As the men looked for the pistol, MCLYMORE pulled out a shotgun belonging to the driver that had been on a rack in the truck. He pointed the gun at both men and then forced the passenger, at gunpoint, to walk down the road with him.
A couple blocks down the road, MCLYMORE spotted two young boys, 13 and 16 years old, and approached them with the shotgun. He pointed the shotgun at the boys’ chin and chests, then forced the passenger of the truck to check the boys’ pockets for money. MCLYMORE then ordered the boys to strip to their underwear, before running back in the direction of his girlfriend’s house.
Clinton Police Department officers at this time were investigating the earlier residential robbery, and one officer spotted MCLYMORE walking with a shotgun behind a house. With a tip from a neighbor, law enforcement tracked MCLYMORE to the residence he had identified as his girlfriend’s house. They found him in a bedroom with a wristwatch, wadded up money, a shotgun shell, and over three dozen .380 caliber bullets in his pockets. Behind the house, officers found the stolen shotgun, loaded with three shotgun shells that matched the one found in MCLYMORE’s pocket.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. Since 2017, the United States Department of Justice has reinvigorated the PSN program and has targeted violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.
That effort has been implemented through the Take Back North Carolina Initiative of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. This initiative emphasizes the regional assignment of federal prosecutors to work with law enforcement and District Attorney’s Offices in those communities on a sustained basis to reduce the violent crime rate, drug trafficking, and crimes against law enforcement.
The Clinton Police Department, Sampson County Sheriff’s Office, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Jake D. Pugh and Aakash Singh represented the government.
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The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years.