ELKIN — The Surry County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the homicide of an Elkin man, Sheriff Graham Atkinson confirmed Wednesday afternoon, the second local death to be probed by area law enforcement that day.
In the Elkin case, officers responding to a 11:51 a.m. report of a shooting arrived at 172 Fremont Lane to find 73-year-old Charlie Winfield Spann dead in the driveway, Atkinson said.
Atkinson would not confirm if Spann had been shot, because investigators had not “manipulated the body yet,” but added that the victim had been “obviously wounded.”
Iredell County law enforcement provided a tracking canine to search the area nearby the scene, and local investigators are at the crime scene waiting for the approval of a search warrant to search the residence and property.
The State Bureau of Investigation is assisting the investigation, Atkinson said. Late Wednesday afternoon, few details had emerged.
“Right now we know it is a homicide victim, but it is very early in the stages, even though it’s been three hours,” Atkinson said. “At this point, there was no one else at the residence [when it occurred]. The original call came from a friend who came to check on him when he wouldn’t answer his phone.
“We’ve not been close enough to examine what caused his death,” he said. “All that was done was determine he was deceased and then we stepped back to wait on a search warrant.”
Officials are in search of a vehicle which was seen in the area at the time of the incident, a blue Chevrolet Cavalier. “We just want to see if [the driver] witnessed anything or heard anything,” said Atkinson.
He said anyone who was within eye shot or nearby has been interviewed about the incident, but it was too early to speculate what led up to the shooting and death.
With Surry County officials also investigating a stabbing death over the weekend in Lowgap and the homicide of an elderly woman in Mount Airy Wednesday morning, Atkinson said, “There is no reason to think it is [related to those deaths], but there is nothing indicating it is not.”
In that Mount Airy probe, law enforcement responded to a home at 409 Franklin St. to conduct a welfare check on the occupant, where they found the elderly female resident dead.
The residence, a two-story unit in a duplex apartment-type building, appeared to have been broken into and the victim had signs of assault, police said. Det. Paul Barker could not comment on any apparent cause of death.
In addition to other elements suggesting foul play, the victim’s vehicle was located abandoned off Interstate 77 near mile marker 99 in Surry County in the general vicinity of Brintle’s Truck Stop.
Law enforcement was still at the scene of both deaths late this afternoon continuing their investigations. The deaths follow by five days the stabbing death of Levi Joe Haynes, 26, in Lowgap. Sheriff’s deputies found him dead on the porch of a home at 390 Big Oak Lane in Lowgap when responding to reports of a stabbing.
That case is still under investigation, although Atkinson’s office said that death may be been related “an ongoing confrontation” with a female at the residence that had been taking place throughout the day Saturday.
