Woman, baby boy may have been dead for weeks at north Charlotte recovery program
A 36-year-old woman and a 1-year-old boy were found dead Friday morning at the Baymont Inn in north Charlotte, where a substance abuse recovery program is located.
Police are investigating.
Shannon Solomon and the boy, who was not named in a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department incident report, died of sudden or natural causes. They were found at 11:57 a.m. at 5415 Equipment Drive, the report said.
The hotel was previously the site of Heal Charlotte, a nonprofit that provided housing assistance and programming. However, Heal Charlotte left the hotel when its lease ended on April 7, according to the Heal Charlotte founder, Greg Jackson.
Jackson issued a public statement on Saturday saying Heal Charlotte no longer has any involvement with the hotel. The nonprofit received $2 million in city government funding to sign a lease at the hotel to provide affordable housing and counseling to poor people.
“At the conclusion of our contract, Heal Charlotte fulfilled every obligation, vacated the premises, removed all signage, and ended all engagement with the Baymont Inn,” the statement said. “We are now focused on the future— building new partnerships, acquiring new properties, and continuing to serve families with dignity, integrity, and transparency.”
Some of the Heal Charlotte residents apparently stayed at the hotel when a new substance abuse recovery program took over shortly after.
The program, started, by Cedric Dean, is called Heal, Empower, Love, Protect. It goes by the acronym HELP. It began moving people into rooms. Dean said in a previous interview with The Charlotte Observer that he paid Heal Charlotte residents to move out.
That led to some controversy.
Dean was arrested May 20 after a woman in the Baymont accused him of breaking and entering into her room to get her to move out. Dean disputed this, saying he paid her twice as much as other tenants to move out and that he never forced his way in.
Death under investigation
On Monday, Dean told The Charlotte Observer that the woman who died was a Heal Charlotte resident and because of this, he and other employees of his nonprofit were not allowed to have any contact or disturb her or they could be arrested. He said he believes she and the baby had been dead for weeks.
Cemeka Mitchem, who works with Dean at HELP, said she called hotel owner Shawn Ahmad on May 22 to report a bad smell in the lobby, which she thought might have been a dead animal. She said Monday that she fears the smell was actually from the room where the bodies were found.
Jackson, the founder of Heal Charlotte, said in an interview Monday that his nonprofit was not responsible for anyone living at the hotel after his lease ended April 7.
“Rest in peace to that lady ... Rest in peace to her child,” Jackson said. “This is a very sad story, but we are not responsible for anybody that is in that building.”
People living in hotels
Charlotte city officials last year said that it was common for people to live in hotels or former hotels as their permanent residence.
Some of the tenants who left the Lamplighter Inn, a west Charlotte hotel where people lived in poor conditions, moved into the Heal Charlotte program.
If you have lived at the Baymont hotel, The Charlotte Observer would like to hear from you. We will respect your confidentiality. Contact reporter Jeff A. Chamer at jchamer@charlotteobserver.com or (704) 358-5013.
This story was originally published June 9, 2025 at 12:22 PM.
