Clerk clings to life

By TIM GULLA Ledger Staff Writer tim@gaffneyledger.com

Cenora Stevenson, 94, is pictured in a church pew in one of several photographs family members have retrieved from her home following a Christmas Eve fire. A Grover, N.C., woman remained in critical condition at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte on Thursday night, still on life support and recovering from a serious head injury sustained when she was thrown from the hood of a car.

Cheryl Greene, a 31-year-old mother of three young children and a clerk at the Wilco Travel Plaza in Blacksburg, was trying to stop two alleged shoplifters from leaving the plaza's parking lot Christmas morning when she was carried away and eventually thrown off the hood of a vehicle a half mile away, just over the North Carolina border.

"Everything's wait and see," Greene's mother, Ann Robinson of Grover, said Thursday afternoon. "She's totally unresponsive to anything or anybody. She's been unconscious since the moment it happened."

Robinson said her daughter underwent a medical procedure late Wednesday evening in the hopes it would lessen the pressure on her brain.

"It seemed to help some," Robinson said, "but for how long, nobody knows."

Two people have been charged in connection with the incident.

Donald Joshua Jones, 26, of Sprouse Lane, Grover, and a passenger in his car, Pamela Dockery, 21, of Grass Hollow Court, Charlotte, face charges in both Cherokee County and Cleveland County, N.C., in the wake of the incident.

Police allege the two stole about $200 in electronics equipment at the Wilco Travel Plaza and were attempting to leave when Greene tried to stop them in the parking lot.

Capt. Mike Fowlkes of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said it's believed Greene jumped on the hood of Jones' vehicle in an attempt to get him to stop but he continued driving away, eventually throwing her off the hood.

Video surveillance footage from inside the store has been obtained, but Fowlkes said there is no video from what happened outside.

North Carolina Highway Patrol troopers subsequently caught and arrested Jones, who remains jailed in the Cleveland County, N.C., Detention Center on a number of North Carolina charges including felony hitand run and driving while intoxicated.

Fowlkes said Cherokee County is charging both Jones and Dockery with assault and battery with intent to kill and shoplifting. They will be extradited to Cherokee County if they post bond in North Carolina.

Greene's husband has been staying at her side in the hospital. Her parents, Ann and Charley Robinson, who have been watching her three children, were taken by local Rescue Squad personnel in Grover to Charlotte on Wednesday evening to see their daughter.

Christmas has been on hold in the Greene and Robinson households in the hopes Cheryl Greene recovers, Ann Robinson said.

While Greene's three children (ages 8, 6 and 4) are doing all right, Robinson said they still are young enough they don't understand.

"I told them as much as I could tell them without being gruesome, because I was afraid they were going to hear it from somewhere else or on TV," Robinson said. "They think their momma will be here tomorrow, and I'm telling them and their father's telling them, no, it may take a long time for their momma to come home."

Several attempts to reach someone with speaking authority for North Carolinabased Wilcohess, the operator of the Wilco Travel Plaza in Blacksburg, were unsuccessful on Thursday. Messages left with a district manager and the firm's marketing department have not been returned. The company's policies on the expected employee response to alleged shoplifting are unclear.

Fowlkes said the merchandise that was taken from Wilco Travel Plaza was recovered from Jones' vehicle.

The incident happened at about 3 a.m. on Christmas Day.

Greene only recently started working the third shift at the Wilco Travel Plaza.

By switching from the second to the third shift, Robinson said Greene was able to see her children when they came home from school, help them with their homework, and get them ready for bed in the evening.

"She wanted those hours," Robinson said.

"She's totally unresponsive to anything or anybody. She's been unconscious since the moment it happened."

"I told them (Cheryl's children) as much as I could tell them without being gruesome, because I was afraid they were going to hear it from somewhere else or on TV. They think their momma will be here tomorrow, and I'm telling them and their father's telling them, no, it may take a long time for their momma to come home."

- Ann Robinson, Cheryl Greene's mother

CHARGED

Donald Joshua Jones, 26, of Sprouse Lane, Grover

Pamela Dockery, 21, of Grass Hollow Court, Charlotte

JONES FACES A NUMBER of charges in North Carolina, including felony hitand run and driving while intoxicated.

BOTH JONES AND DOCKERY will be charged in Cherokee County with assault and battery with intent to kill and shoplifting, said Capt. Mike Fowlkes of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office.