Raymond Roger Surratt thought he was having a stroke of good luck this week. He told The Star he had two big wins at video poker machines, netting a few thousand dollars. He celebrated with a cookout at his Shelby home Thursday. But his luck changed early Friday morning when he walked into his home to find four men with guns pointed at him.

They kidnapped him, bound him in duct tape and stuck him in the trunk of a car, Surratt, 29, said. He managed to escape by opening the trunk and jumping out of the car as it was traveling down Post Road in Shelby.

“I saw them that day,” Surratt said. “They knew I won.”

The men got away with $5 and his cell phone, he said.

Capt. Bobby Steen said investigators obtained warrants against one of the suspects, who Surratt identified, Chavis Leon Hargro, 24. Hargro is wanted on charges of first-degree kidnapping, second–degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and robbery with a dangerous weapon. Surratt said he didn’t know the other men.

“Now we’re trying to find out who the other accomplices are,” Steen said.

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About four years ago, Hargro was convicted of shooting Shelby Police officer, Richard Ivey. On May 2, 2000, Ivey served Hargro a warrant and was processing him at the magistrate’s office when Hargro attacked him and another magistrate. Hargro grabbed Ivey’s gun and shot him in the upper right leg. Ivey continues to work at the police department.

The same week that he shot Ivey, Hargro was also arrested in connection with another kidnapping in which two men were tortured. Shelby police said that Hargro and five other men tortured the two men by forcing one to drink hydrochloric acid, pouring hot wax on and sodomizing one of the men with a stick.

“I know what he’s done,” Surratt said. “I grew up with him. I’m friends with his brother.”

About 2 a.m. Friday, Surratt, his girlfriend, her 4-year-old daughter and another male friend returned to Surratt’s home in Shelby.

Surratt said the front door looked tampered with so he walked in first.

“There were three or four guys in my house,” he said. “They were coming up from behind the furniture. They were armed and told me to get down on the floor,” he said.

Surratt’s girlfriend, the child and the friend ran across the street and called 911.

The men removed Surratt’s shoes, he said, and put him in the back seat of the car.

The men drove him to Waco, Surratt said. Along the way, Surratt said they kept asking him about the money.

At a dead-end road in Waco, they took him out of the car.

“They ducttaped my arms behind my back, taped my mouth and eyes and put me in the trunk,” he said. “I thought they was going to kill me.”

Surratt was able to pull off the duct tape. He said he pulled out the taillight wires hoping that police would stop the car for a broken taillight.

“Every time they mashed the brakes, the trunk would light up,” he said. “Then I saw a card that said ‘trunk release.’ I waited until we slowed down.”

He opened the trunk and rolled out of the car and ran to a nearby house. He didn’t realize it then, but he was somewhere on Post Road.

He banged on the doors of two houses, he said, before someone opened their door and then closed it again.

“I had no shirt, shoes. I was all muddy and sweaty,” he said. “I scared the girl who answered but I told her to call the police.”

After investigators arrived, Surratt said, he realized he was at the home of a high school friend.

Surratt said he gave investigators all the information he knew, but did not know the men with Hargro.

According to the N.C. Department of Correction, Hargro was paroled in February after serving time for second-degree kidnapping.

While video poker machines are legal in North Carolina, cash payoffs are not.

Operators are only allowed to award $10 in merchandise to winners. It was illegal for the operators to pay Surratt thousands of dollars, Steen said.

“This is just why we’re trying to stop it,” Steen said. “This business creates other crimes.”

Anyone with information about Hargro’s whereabouts or any other information about this crime is asked to call the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office at (704) 484- 4888.

Source: Megan Ward, The Star Online