CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Search warrants obtained by the Charlotte Observer Wednesday show police sought bank records for accounts controlled by Royce Mitchell, adoptive brother of slain teen Tiffany Wright.
Mitchell was the custodian of financial accounts left to Wright by her adoptive mother, Alma Wright, who died last January.
The search warrants, executed Jan. 22 and made public Monday, do not say what police expected to find in the accounts. Police sought records for all of 2009. The warrants do spell out previously publicized actions by Mitchell, which police say amount to probable cause that the financial accounts may be evidence in Tiffany Wright's murder.
Mitchell was briefly granted custody of Wright when their mother died. He was also given control of her financial accounts, which were left in trust to Wright until she turned 18.
Wright was 15 years old and eight months pregnant last September when she was shot and killed while waiting for her school bus. Her baby was delivered but soon died. No one has been charged in the murder, but Mitchell and another man were previously named persons of interest in the killing.
Police arrested Mitchell, 36, on the day of the murder and charged him with statutory rape of Wright. But the rape charge was dropped when a DNA test showed he wasn't the father of Wright's baby. A judge in November revoked Mitchell's parole from a drug conviction and sent him back to federal prison for 2 1/2 years when he found probable cause that Mitchell likely had sex with Wright.
Adrian Powell, a former West Mecklenburg High football player who had a relationship with Wright, also has been named a suspect in her slaying. Police wouldn't say Wednesday whether he remains under scrutiny. Last fall, they ordered a DNA test to see if Powell was the father of Wright's baby, but police won't say if results are back.
Police Wednesday also refused to comment on what they found when they examined Wright's financial records.
