Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010

A family mourns for Zeke

To hear friends tell it, Zeke Crowder was a funny, chatty, football-crazy guy who couldn't walk through a mall without 20 people calling his name - the last man you'd expect to find shot dead on a Southeast Raleigh porch.

He'd made mistakes. He'd posed for a mug shot before. But nothing violent. He didn't have that reckless, don't-care streak that puts a young man inside a coffin.

So this week, while Raleigh police hunted for his killer, Zeke's friends recalled the man who once caught a winning touchdown pass for the Enloe Eagles, who served in Iraq with the U.S. Army and who left behind a wife and a pair of boys, ages 4 and 6.

"He was a good dude," said his aunt Jean Satawhite. "He'd talk to you quick. I guess that was his problem. He met too many people."

The street where Crowder died sits a few blocks east of downtown, not far from Chavis Park or Raleigh National Cemetery. With only five houses, Hay Lane is shorter than some people's driveways, and you can guess a little bit about life there from what you find in the front yards.

A thick hedge of prickly pears surrounds one of them: nature's way of saying keep off the grass.

On the porch across the street, there's a half-finished game of Dominoes laid out on a table, and an empty can of Icehouse nearby on the ground.

At another, there's a few pieces of Legos in the dirt, and three partly smoked blunt-style cigars still sitting near the door.

Here, the former footballer met his end.

"Man, can I get an ambulance to (expletive) um, 609, um, Hay Lane Street?" says the woman's voice calling 911 last week. "Somebody just got shot on my mama's porch."

She goes on to describe a suspect in a white T-shirt and a black do-rag, and then, impatient, tells the dispatcher, "We about to (expletive) go, man! Come on, man, come on."

Raleigh police believe that whoever shot at the house on Hay Lane did so on foot, catching not only Crowder but wounding a second man. Neither of the victims lived there. To Shelonda Crowder, Zeke's wife in Garner, this was a case of wrong-place, wrong-time.

"That's how I know the person who did it didn't know him at all," she said, hosting a gathering of dozens of mourners. "Everybody around Raleigh knew Zeke."

He was just 30. His oldest boy, Brenden, turns 7 in October.

Zeke and Shelonda had separated recently, and Zeke was working odd jobs, trying to get himself together after getting laid off from his electrician's job. Shelonda keeps a picture of him in a suit and a pair of shades, behind the wheel of his car, looking for work like a businessman.

Aunt Jean says she used to get on him about hanging around Hay Lane. She warned him about keeping poor company.

But Zeke would talk to anybody. You could ask anyone.