ROCKINGHAM — A Moore County man wanted for killing a man in Ellerbe last month was recently arrested in Forsyth County.
According to the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, 31-year-old Patrice Hoza Taylor Jr., of Aberdeen, was found Tuesday, April 18 in Winston-Salem by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Investigators with the sheriff’s office had charged Taylor in the death of 21-year-old Nikolas Jurel Cromer, of Rockingham.
Deputies had responded to Sallie Goins Hill Road just after 3 p.m. on March 3 after receiving a call from someone who reported hearing a man screaming, the sheriff’s office said last month.
Cromer was reportedly found lying on a porch yelling for help and told the first deputy on scene that he had been shot. Cromer was transported to a trauma center where he later died.
The sheriff’s office says Taylor was in possession of a stolen firearm and “an assortment of illegal narcotics” at the time of his arrest.
Taylor is charged with an open count of murder and possession of a firearm by a felon and is being held without bond in the Richmond County Jail. He is scheduled to appear in court May 4.
Jail records show Taylor is also being held on more than 20 charges from two other counties:
- Cumberland – three counts each of breaking and entering to terrorize or injure and communicating threats; two counts each of injury to personal property and assault on a female; one count each of possession of a firearm by a felon, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and assault by pointing a gun.
- Moore – one felony and two misdemeanor counts of possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance; two counts of possession of marijuana paraphernalia; one count each of possession of a Schedule I controlled substance, fleeing to elude arrest, simple affray, and assault inflicting serious injury.
For those charges, Taylor is being held under a combined $753,000 secured bond and has court dates slated for April 20, May 1, 10 and 18.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Records with the N.C. Department of Adult Correction show Taylor was first convicted in Moore County of possessing stolen goods in 2009 and resisting a public officer the following year. His probation was revoked three weeks after the latter conviction and he spent three weeks locked up.
Taylor was also convicted in subsequent years of discharging a firearm into an occupied property, carrying a concealed weapon, fleeing to elude arrest and resisting a public officer, spending around 30 months incarcerated following probation revocations and a post-release sentence.
In 2020, Taylor was convicted in Hoke County of possession with intent to sell both a Schedule I and Schedule III controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. His probation on two of those charges was revoked and he spent another three months behind bars.
