Police: Phone app helped track down suspect wanted in Raleigh shootings, rape

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Thursday, September 3, 2015
Phone app helped track down suspect wanted in Raleigh
Kendrick Keyanti Gregory (Courtesy: Raleigh-Wake City-County Bureau of Identification)

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Police in New York City say a cell phone app helped them capture a Wake Forest man wanted in two shootings, one of them deadly, and the rape of a 15-year-old.

New York authorities said 21-year-old Kendrick Keyanti Gregory was stopped Tuesday driving a 2014 Honda Pilot that had been reported stolen from a parking lot there.

When officers learned the SUV had a GPS tracking system installed and that it could be located using a phone application they downloaded a tracking app and saw the vehicle was traveling across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Officers in the area stopped the SUV and found Gregory inside. He was taken into custody without incident.

Police said when the officers searched Gregory they found a Springfield Armory XDS .45 caliber handgun in his pant pocket. Afterwards, they searched the vehicle and discovered another Springfield Armory XDS .45 caliber handgun beneath the driver's seat.

Authorities said investigators later learned Gregory, of Bratt Avenue in Wake Forest, was wanted for the violent crimes committed on Monday.

His arrest wrapped up an intense manhunt that began when a man was shot in the back around 9 a.m. Monday at the Knights Inn hotel in the 3800 block of New Bern Avenue. Police said Lenin Alvaringa, 27, was shot during a robbery.

Click here to read more about that shooting

Then around 7 p.m. Monday evening Gregory allegedly shot Mr. Pawn Check Cashing owner Thomas Melvin Durand, 64, during a robbery at 4630 Capital Blvd. Durand died at the scene.

Thomas Melvin Durand

Click here to read more about that incident

Around that same time, police said a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in the area.

Just before 9:30 p.m., he allegedly robbed the International Foods store on New Hope Church Road. Two shots were fire, but no one was hurt.

Gregory is charged with murder, first-degree rape, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Police in New York City have also charged Gregory with grand larceny and criminal possession of a weapon - a loaded firearm.

According to court records Gregory was convicted last month for breaking and entering in vehicles. He was also charged in 2013 with larceny.

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