Man sentenced to 16-20 years for 2020 murder of Locust resident
Published 9:39 pm Thursday, June 8, 2023
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A man pled guilty to the murder of a Locust resident Thursday.
According to an online post by Locust Police Department, Dakota Dylan Wensil of Mt. Pleasant pled guilty to the second-degree murder in the death of Eddie Wayne Love.
Wensil
He was sentenced to 190-240 months (16-20 years) in the North Carolina Department of Corrections.
Locust officers responded to a reported assault with a critically injured victim off Griffin Hill Drive shortly after midnight Aug. 27, 2020. Officers found Love, 48, trauma to his head. He was pronounced deceased at the scene.
“I honestly hope they get prosecuted to the fullest because it was a brutal, brutal beating,” Freddie Love, Eddie’s brother, said days after the incident. “To me I don’t feel it should have gone as far as it did.”
Freddie Love, left, and his brother, Eddie, who police say was beaten to death in late August 2020. (File)
After Locust investigators and North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agents investigated the scene, Wensil was identified as the primary suspect, Locust Police said.
“It was discovered that an altercation over the allegation of stolen property had occurred between Wensil and Love which resulted in Mr. Love’s death,” a Facebook post by Locust Police stated.
Wensil fled to Tennessee, Locust Police Chief Jeff Shew said in a 2020 interview with the SNAP, and he was apprehended without incident in Erwin, Tenn.
