Cumberland County armed robber who took part in a 1981 prison coup gets parole

A Maryland man convicted in 1981 in a series of Cumberland County robberies and who was among three inmates who took eight hostages at North Carolina's Central Prison in 1982 has been approved for parole, the state's Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission announced this month.

Melvin Surgeon, now 71, was sentenced in March and May 1981 to a combined total of more than 100 years to life in prison for six armed robberies and one count each of breaking and entering and larceny, according to reports at the time from the Associated Press and United Press International. The robberies included an insurance agency and a motel near Fort Bragg, UPI reported, as well as robberies in Virginia and Maryland. Melvin would have been eligible for parole in 2015.

But, 11 months into his sentence and armed with prison-made daggers and other weapons, Surgeon and his cellmates, William D. Little and Ezekial Hall, seized control of an office in the prison hospital. For 42 hours, the trio held as many as six prison employees and two other inmates hostage, according to an unsuccessful 1984 appeal.

"Although (none) were seeking to escape nor asking to be set free, the defendants demanded that SKY 5, the Channel 5 news helicopter, be brought to Central Prison so that they could air their complaints and that they be transferred to a federal correctional facility outside North Carolina," the appeal states.

A Raleigh attorney and prisoner-rights activist Irvin Joyner who participated in negotiations for the hostages' release said the group claimed they staged the coup because inmates were "treated inhumanely and subjected to racist attitudes and treatment by guards."

On the second day of the incident, after hours of negotiations, the three men agreed to exchange four of the hostages for sandwiches, water and cigarettes. Among the released hostages were Bobby Lee Miller, convicted the week prior for the so-called "mummy murders," a grisly triple-murder in Raleigh in which three bodies were tied and gagged with duct tape after strangulation, and Roger McQueen of Fayetteville who was serving two life sentences for first-degree murder in Cumberland County in 1972. He killed two women in Parkton five months after escaping from a Missouri prison where he was serving time for murder.

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Later on the second day, they released a fifth hostage who suffered a dizzy spell from high blood pressure and slumped over.

The standoff ended early on the third day when an agreement was reached with an FBI agent and the three hostage-takers in which the men would surrender and be transferred to a federal prison outside of the state, the appeal states.

According to published reports, once the hostage situation ended, the three hostage-takers were loaded into a van and driven three hours to a federal penitentiary in Petersburg, Virginia.

State reneges on the deal

But once they arrived at the Virginia prison, North Carolina ordered the men be returned to the state, causing an outcry from some who claimed the state dealt in bad faith.

"If somebody is offended by the fact that these inmates may have been misled, that's just tough," Brett Hackney, a press aide to then-Gov. James Hunt Jr. told the AP at the time. "You don't allow somebody to bargain someone out of prison; you don't reward a terrorist act."

On Oct. 15, 1982, a Wake County jury found each defendant guilty of six counts of second-degree kidnapping. Little received six consecutive 25-year prison sentences; Hall received six consecutive 30-year prison sentences; and Surgeon received six consecutive 15-year prison sentences according to the appeal.

At the time of the hostage-taking, Little was serving at least 45 years in prison on charges of second-degree rape, burglary and common law robbery out of Surry County. According to reports, he abducted a 69-year-old woman from a Mount Airy hospital parking lot and sexually assaulted her. He died in prison in 2017, state Department of Correction records show.

Hall, at the time, was serving a combined life sentence out of Cumberland County after he and another man abducted a Fayetteville gas station attendant along Interstate 95 in July 1980. They robbed and abducted the worker, then kicked him down an embankment on U.S. 301, shooting him in the neck. The victim, who survived, lay in a ditch for 15 hours before being found. Hall remains in prison, corrections records show. His projected release date is 2081.

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The hostage situation wasn't Surgeon's first attempt at an early release. Shortly after his arrest in the robberies here, he and another prisoner to whom he was shackled were being taken back to jail from a Cumberland County court appearance when Surgeon attacked the lone deputy escorting them off an elevator.

After knocking the deputy to the ground and yelling for the other inmate to grab the deputy's keys, the other inmate refused and pulled back on the handcuffs joining him with Surgeon. The other inmate's actions allowed other nearby deputies to arrive and subdue Surgeon.

He was convicted of the escape attempt at the same time as some of the local robberies.

Mutual Agreement Parole Program

According to the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission, Surgeon has been approved for parole via the Mutual Agreement Parole Program. The program is designed to prepare inmates for release through structured activities, progression in custody levels and participation in community-based programs.

A news release states that under the agreement, Surgeon's parole release date is June 26. It notes that the state’s current sentencing law, Structured Sentencing, eliminates parole for crimes committed on or after Oct. 1, 1994, but the Commission is responsible for paroling offenders sentenced under previous sentencing guidelines.

Officials did not say where Surgeon, who is originally from Annapolis, Maryland, will live upon his release. It was not immediately clear if Surgeon was ever convicted of robberies elsewhere.

F.T. Norton can be reached at fnorton@fayobserver.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cumberland County armed robber part of a 1981 prison coup attempt gets parole