3rd arrest made after single mother killed inside home in May

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police have made a third arrest in the shooting death of a single mother in May in west Charlotte.

['M'ya's message was to smile': Family remembers mother killed by stranger]

Officers were called on May 25 to a home on Catherine Simmons Avenue in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood around 7:30 p.m. after reports of a shooting.

(Monica Smith)

When they got there, police said they found Monica Smith, 26, inside the home suffering from a gunshot wound. She was taken to Atrium Health's Carolinas Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

On June 6, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department tweeted that 24-year-old Natron McDougald was arrested and charged with murder.

(Faulkner, McDougald)

On June 17, CMPD arrested Marquis Faulkner, 18, and charged him with murder.

CMPD announced on Nov. 8 it arrested Donte Clements, 31, and charged his with murder.

"Monica was a sweet person," friend Tracy Amica said. "Every time I saw her, she had a smile on her face."

The victim's mother Lisa Meletiche told Channel 9 Smith had served in the Army at Fort Bragg and had an 8-year-old son.

She said she was honorably discharged and had big dreams of becoming a music artist.

"We don't have closure," Meletiche said. "As a family, her son is only 8 years old and he is now without a mother and our lives have been changed drastically."

(Monica Smith)

Smith lived at the Moss Creek condo community in Concord.

Neighbors said Smith had a concealed-carry permit and took her firearm everywhere she went.

After the shooting, homicide detectives were working the neighborhood looking for witnesses.

"I was shocked and confused," Amica said. "I really don't know why that would happen to someone like her. It didn't make sense."

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Smith's death was Charlotte's 51st homicide of 2019.

Catherine Simmons Road is just over a half-mile long but has been the scene of six different shootings since the beginning of 2017 -- four of them fatal.

Cox Media Group