Fayetteville woman convicted of two gang-initiation murders when she was 15 gets paroled

A Fayetteville woman convicted of two gang-initiation murders nearly 26 years ago has been approved for parole, according to the state Post Release Supervision & Parole Commission.

Tameika Douglas, 40, was sentenced to life without parole in September 2000 for the August 1998 Fayetteville abduction and murders of Tracy Lambert, 18, and Susan Moore, 25, and the kidnapping and shooting of Debra Cheeseborough. Cheeseborough, 40, survived.

Douglas was 15 when the crimes were committed and just 17 when she was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count each of attempted first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, according to court records. In 2021, the state Court of Appeals overturned the sentence of life without parole.

Eight others were also convicted in the killings which prosecutors said were part of an initiation into the Crips gang.

'Death Ride'

On Aug. 17, 1998, Cheeseborough was leaving the late shift at the Bojangles on Raeford Road when Douglas, Carlos Nevilles, then-20; and Ione Black, then-21, abducted the restaurant manager at gunpoint about 12:30 a.m. Douglas testified at trial that the motive for the killing was robbery. She said a senior gang member ordered her to come up with $3,000 to bail him out of jail or risk being beaten or killed, The Fayetteville Observer reported at the time. The prosecutor said Douglas' involvement was part of a gang initiation.

With Cheeseborough locked in the trunk, the three met up with other gang members, including Carlos Frink, then-20, and drove the married mother to Smith Lake on then-Fort Bragg. After forming a semicircle around the vehicle, Cheeseborough was freed from the trunk and, at the direction of Frink, the group opened fire, shooting her seven times and leaving her for dead, Douglas' appeal states. A passing motorist would find her fighting for life some 12 hours later after she crawled to the road.

The gang members, now including Christina Walters, then-20; Eric Queen, then-19; and Darryl Tucker Jr., then-18, decided to steal another vehicle and by 2 a.m. were following Moore and Lambert, who were in Moore's Grand Prix.

When Moore stopped the car three doors from Lambert's Hope Mills home near Permastone Lake, the gang members pounced, forcing the young women into the trunk of Moore's vehicle and taking them on a "death ride," the prosecutor told the jury in opening statements at the May 2000 trial of ringleader Walters.

At Frink's trial in 2001, Douglas testified that Francisco Tirado, then-17, who killed Moore, turned up the radio in the vehicle when they stopped at a gas station to drown out the sounds of the women screaming.

The abducted women were taken to an isolated pea field in Linden near Laura Ray and Bend roads. Queen shot Lambert in the head after walking her further into the field and making her get to her knees, Douglas' appeal states. Moore was walked in a different direction and also forced her to her knees. The gun jammed three times before Moore was also shot in the head, the record states.

"After Susan Moore hit the ground, Paco just stood over her and said, '... that's how you shoot a (expletive),'" Douglas testified at Frink's capital murder trial in 2001.

The young women's bodies were found four hours later by a farmer preparing to cultivate his pea harvest. Both women had been shot at least once in the head with a .32-caliber weapon.

The day before the murders, according to a 2008 story from The Fayetteville Observer, the gang members had an initiation and used fingernail polish to paint the tips of the bullets used in the killing and kidnapping blue.

A week after the killing, police arrested Douglas and the others at a Myrtle Beach hotel after one in the group used a cellphone stolen from one of the victims.

According to the N.C. Department of Adult Correction records, Douglas was released from prison and is no longer in North Carolina. The record doesn't say where she is.

Douglas will be on post-release supervision for five years, according to a spokesman from the NCDAC.

The majority of Douglas' co-defendants remain in custody.

• Tirado was sentenced to death, but that sentence was overturned in 2005 after the U.S. Supreme Court found it unconstitutional to execute offenders who were under 18 years old when the crimes were committed. He is serving a life sentence.

• Christina Walters, was condemned to death but had the sentence overturned in 2020 by the state Supreme Court because it violated the Racial Justice Act. The prosecutor "struck 10 of 14 potential black jurors, a strike rate of 3.6 times that of potential white jurors," according to The Center for Death Penalty Litigation. Walters was resentenced to life in prison.

• Queen was sentenced to death. He killed himself in Central Prison on Aug. 5, 2007.

• Nevilles and Frink were each sentenced to and are serving life sentences.

• Tucker was sentenced to a total of nearly 45 years on charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping. He is projected to be released in 2035.

• John Juarbe served 23 years in custody on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon. He was released from prison in 2021 when he was 44.

• Ione Black, then-21, was sentenced to just shy of five years in prison on two counts of first-degree kidnapping. She was released from prison in 2004. Black cooperated with investigators and called 911 to report the killing, according to reports.

Public safety reporter Joseph Pierre can be reached at jpierre@gannett.com.