Financial troubles, infidelity may have led to fatal shooting

RALEIGH -- Wake County sheriff’s investigators are searching the computer records of a South Raleigh business owner to determine if financial difficulties led to the fatal shooting of his wife this month.

Sheriff’s detectives are also trying to determine if marital infidelity was a catalyst in the July 3 shooting, according to a search warrant filed Tuesday at the Wake County Clerk of Courts Office.

Sheriff’s deputies charged Fernando Palma Carias, 47, with the first-degree murder of his wife, Marisol Mendoza Rojas. In the search warrant, obtained three days after the shooting, Sheriff’s investigator E.A. Welch recounted what officers saw when they arrived at the scene: Rojas was lying on the living room floor of the residence, fatally shot.


The couple’s children were home, and told the deputies that their parents were having a heated argument when Carias got a handgun out of a closet, stood over his wife and shot her several times. Sheriff’s investigators also learned during the investigation that “marital infidelity and financial concerns” may have played a role in the shooting, according to the search warrant.

Carias and Rojas were owners of Mexico Lindo, a white-brick convenience store that sits in a tiny retail strip at 2601 S. Saunders St., Welch said.

Investigators searched the business and seized a desktop computer, a Wachovia checkbook belonging to Rojas and a second checkbook found behind the counter of the business, court records show.

Carias remained in custody at the Wake County jail on Tuesday without bail, a jail spokesman reported.

Immigration officials have placed a retainer on Carias because they think he may be in this country illegally, the spokesman said.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD - TMCDONALD@NEWSOBSERVER.COM