Fayetteville Police issued the first-degree arrest warrant for Stanton Moretti Tuesday afternoon. He's also charged with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury with intent to kill.
The father of the suspect who was killed says he wants the man responsible for his son's death behind bars.
"It was like a cruel punishment that it was issued out for no reason," Gilbert McLeod said. He is the father of 28-year-old Aaron McLeod.
McLeod, 28, died Monday night at UNC Hospitals from injuries he sustained Friday after being run over several times. Police say Moretti purposely drove over McLeod. Stanton Moretti's lawyer, Michael Boose, told Eyewitness News his client wasn't trying to kill anyone.
"He was pursuing an unknown assailant telling him to stay the police had been called. He needed to stay right there. You weren't going anywhere buddy. I'm following you to where ever it takes," Boose said.
Eyewitness News talked to Moretti's wife, Anna, who says McLeod tried to stab her several times outside Primo Pizza on Yadkin Road.
McLeod's father says his son wouldn't have harmed anyone and believes he probably just wanted to bum a cigarette from Anna.
"He did have a cigarette smoking habit were he probably walked up to the lady 9:30 at night," Gilbert McLeod said. "He's as large as I am -- probably spooked her."
Police say Anna screamed for her husband. Investigators say Stan came outside and fired a couple of warning shots. McLeod's father says what Stan did next is baffling.
"Then run to get in his vehicle," McLeod said. "Chase him down as you were doing a dog or something. Run over him three or four times. And then to come back to make the crime in their favor, to lie and say that he had a knife."
Anna says there was a knife and police told her they recovered it. McLeod says he wants justice for his son.
"I want the law not to hide anything but to give him the max time he deserves," McLeod said.
Moretti will make his first court appearance Thursday. Moretti had been out of jail on a $25,000 bond for his assault with a deadly weapon charge. With a first degree murder charge, there will be no bond.
