Suspect in the shooting of NC cop’s 14-year-old son pleads guilty during murder trial
The trial of the accused killer of the 14-year-old son of a Charlotte-area police officer was suspended last week when the judge tested positive for COVID-19.
On Wednesday, testimony unexpectedly stopped again — this time for defendant Mangasha Clark to plead guilty.
In a deal reached with prosecutors during the second week of his trial, the 24-year-old Charlotte man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the Jan. 2, 2017 shooting death of Anthony Frazier, the son of former Kannapolis police Officer Daniel Frazier.
Superior Court Judge Bob Bell sentenced Clark to 150-192 months. If he had been convicted by his jury of first-degree murder, Clark faced a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Anthony, who had turned 14 the day before Christmas, was visiting relatives in Charlotte just after New Year’s 2017 when his life was cut short.
On Jan. 2, he and some relatives attended a family birthday celebration. Afterward, Anthony was a passenger in a car returning to his aunt’s home in east Charlotte when two men planning to break into the house on Finchley Road sprang from the bushes and fled.
Prosecutors say one of them was Clark. For unexplained reasons, he turned and fired one shot at the car. It hit Anthony. The boy died the next day.
During a preliminary hearing in 2018, Assistant District Attorney Heidi Perlman said Clark’s companion that night later demanded the gun, WSOC reported at the time.
“I don’t want you shooting anyone else,” Reginald Edmonds, then 17, told Clark on the night of the incident.
Clark replied, “It was fun,” Perlman said.
Community outrage over Anthony’s death was immediate. In time, a $20,000 reward was offered for information to solve the case. Aided by community tips, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested Clark and Edmonds that April, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Edwards was charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder.
Clark’s case took five years to reach a jury, largely due to a pandemic-driven closure of all or parts of the courthouse dating back to 2020.
One day into jury selection, Superior Court Judge Lisa Bell said she tested positive for COVID-19. The trial was suspended for the rest of the day, she told the Observer.
Bob Bell, a retired Mecklenburg County Superior Court judge now serving as an “emergency” judge and who is no relation to Lisa Bell, took over the next morning.
Clark pleaded guilty a week later.
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 3:36 PM.
