Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apartments
Classifieds
Shopping
MOUNT AIRY, N.C. – A soured love affair may have led an ex-convict to gun down four men in the town that inspired the idyllic community of Mayberry on the 1960s TV series “The Andy Griffith Show,” police said Monday.
Marcos Chavez Gonzalez, 29, was charged with four counts of murder in the slayings late Sunday outside a television store in Mount Airy, about 100 miles north of Charlotte.
The four were shot with a high-powered assault rifle outside Wood’s TV, in the shadow of a water tower that says “Welcome to Mount Airy” and has a picture of Griffith and Opie, Griffith’s son on the show.
Police do not believe the shootings were random. Mount Airy Police Chief Dale Watson said officers are investigating several leads, including whether it was a contract killing or repercussions from a love affair gone bad.
“This is Mayberry ... Andy Griffith’s house is in spitting distance here,” said Michael Wood, one of the owners of Wood’s TV.
The town, population 8,700, has built a tourist trade on nostalgia for the show that continues to thrive in syndication.
Watson identified the victims – all residents of the town – as Victor Alfonso Martinez-Jimenez, 22; Javier Manuel Martinez, 21; Juan Manuel Martinez, 26; and Marcos Oviedo Aguliar, 21.
Gonzalez was arrested without incident at a motel about 50 miles northeast of the town, Henry County, Va., Sheriff Lane Perry said. He was unarmed when he surrendered just before 4 a.m. to officers who had surrounded the motel.
He was extradited from Virginia and was being held in the Surry County Jail.
Watson said 16 shots were fired, but the assault rifle had not been found.
“It was quite a crime scene,” he said.
State prison records show Gonzalez was released more than two years ago after serving more than two years on a 2002 conviction for kidnapping a minor and a probation violation.
