Four arrested in mall assault facing upgraded charges

Tammy Moulder, 35, and Phillip Greene were arrested around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday for common law robbery, assault inflicting serious injury and obtaining propery by false pretense. The two were apprehended at a convenience store on Salisbury Road after police received a tip that they were there.

Jeremy Melton, 26, and Melissa Link, 23, (and reportedly pregnant),were apprehended at Fifth Street Shelter Wednesday night.

Statesville Police Department Chief Tom Anderson said the four are now facing felony assault charges as well as conspiracy after investigators learned the noticed the elderly woman at a pharmacy and followed her to the mall.

The four are facing charges after two men grabbed the purse of a 90-year-old woman as she got out of her vehicle in front of Belk's Tuesday, and she was knocked or fell to the ground, breaking her jaw and causing other injuries. She is being treated at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

Statesville Police rolled in 8 deep to The Fifth Street Shelter like they were looking for Osama Bin Laden. The Shelter is where I currently reside. I watched as Melton and Link were led off in cuffs. Nice eh?

More recently, Melton's 2 sisters have had stories in the Newspaper, blasting the system and moaning about how they tried to get their brother some help, but that the legal system failed him and never got him the mental and drug treatment help he needed. They said he had thoughts of suicide and drug abuse issues and they tried to have him committed and nothing happened. They "say" they are not excusing their brother's actions, but more or less trying to explain why the system failed their family, which resulted in their brother being in trouble and the old lady victim being injured. Personally, to me, it sounds like a plan to get a shorter sentence for their kinfolk. The ole "the system failed us" ploy is strongly at work here it seems.

Their rant went like this, copied from the Statesville Record & Landmark.