Suspect in Sunbury Plaza shooting near Westerville has been arrested in North Carolina
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A Columbus man accused of shooting a woman found in the parking lot of a Blendon Township shopping plaza Tuesday night was arrested early Wednesday morning in North Carolina.
Rodney A. Perry, 29, of Columbus' Far East Side, was taken into custody around 1 a.m. about 30 miles northeast of Charlotte, North Carolina, said Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford.
Perry has been charged with murder in connection with the shooting death Tuesday of 24-year-old Amara Jones, also of the Far East Side, Belford said.
Police found Jones around 5:50 p.m. Tuesday inside a white car at the Sunbury Plaza, a shopping center on South Sunbury Road that is anchored by a Kroger's grocery and located near the Dublin-Granville Road/Route 161 interchange.
Jones had been shot in the head, Belford said. She was taken to Mount Carmel East Hospital on Columbus' Far East Side, where she was pronounced dead.
Gunfire struck a second vehicle in the Kroger parking lot, Belford said, but no one was injured.
Perry's address is listed as being on the 7200 block of Waterfront Lane in the Eastpointe Lake Apartments off Reynoldsburg-New Albany Road in the Blacklick area on the Far East Side, the same address where a possible shooting had been reported shortly before Jones was found at the shopping plaza.
Belford said that there was some initial confusion about the location of the shooting, resulting in Columbus police forcing entry at the suspect’s residence in search of a victim. Police later executed another search of the resident with a warrant.
Video evidence exists from the shopping plaza showing it as the scene of the shooting, Belford said. The victim’s vehicle and bystander vehicle were struck by gunfire.
Court records state that Perry had allegedly told a woman he knew and 911 dispatchers that he had shot Jones.
Perry was thought to have fled south with police being able to track him to the Gallopolis area in southeast Ohio across the Ohio River from West Virginia. A multi-state alert was issued for law enforcement to be on the lookout for Perry.
Perry will be extradited back to Ohio where he will face the murder charges. That process could take days or weeks.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Woman dies after discovered shot in Blendon Township parking lot
