1 Dead, 4 Injured in Hit-and-Run Spree

Police said a man in a white T-shirt and boxer shorts mowed down five pedestrians with two stolen vehicles in separate hit-and-run incidents Wednesday, leaving a dying man pinned under a vehicle and another victim critically injured.

Police said the driver was arrested in central North Carolina after crashing a stolen truck. Abdullah El-Amin Shareef, 25, was charged with murder and taken to a state mental hospital.

Authorities said they had no information about a motive in the assaults, including one attack in which the driver beat a pedestrian after failing to run him over a second time.

The first victim was hit a few minutes after the theft of a van belonging to the city of Fayetteville, authorities said.

Over about two hours, the attacker appeared to deliberately run down pedestrians from Fayetteville, in Cumberland County, north to the Raleigh area, according to Fayetteville police and the state highway patrol.

The van was found in Cumberland County with Lonel Bearl Bass, 56, pinned beneath it. Bass, of Linden, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Bass’ son Scott said the assailant stole his father’s pickup truck.

Another hit-and-run victim, Gary Lee Weller, 55, was in critical condition at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill. Police said a motorist found him lying in a Fayetteville road.

Robert Fortier, hit in Cumberland County, and an unidentified victim in Harnett County suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, authorities said.

The Harnett County victim was hit by the stolen truck, and the others were hit by the van, police said.