By BOB HIGH

Troy Steven “Izzy” Childress – the sixth and final gang member wanted for the vicious beating of a 19-year-old male on March 10 – was arrested by Whiteville police Thursday afternoon while hiding in a vacant mobile home in the Whispering Pines Trailer Park at the edge of the city limits along Smyrna Road.

“I’ve been looking for him every day, and we were close to him a couple of other times, but couldn’t find him until Thursday afternoon,” Whiteville Police Detective Bobby Fowler said of the 23-year-old Childress.

“There wasn’t any power to the trailer where we found him hiding in the rear bedroom. It must have been 95 degrees inside, and Childress was sweating like crazy. He had cut his hair and that gave him a very different look,” Fowler added.

Childress is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injuries and conspiracy with five other teens to commit the crime.

The suspect, who had been on the run since late March, was jailed under a $50,000 bond, and when word came late Thursday that it appeared he was about to be released to his local family, the bond was increased to $1 million by Superior Court Judge Ola Lewis, Police Chief Jerry Britt noted.

Childress had been to New Jersey and other unknown areas when arrests in the beating case began six weeks ago. Fowler said the suspect had been traced to mobile homes off Kit Horne and Charlie Williamson roads south of Whiteville before being found Thursday.

Childress and his co-defendants are reported to be members of Hell’s Gangster Disciples, a part of the Folk Nation Gang that can be traced to the Crips, a group formed in California many years ago.

The six gang members are charged in the beating of Jerome Bullock, 19, of Berry Lane, Brunswick, in the city’s park adjacent to Central Middle School. Bullock sustained serious brain damage after being punched and kicked and left unconscious at the park’s basketball court.

The beating, along with a shooting incident during a middle-school baseball practice, led the city to close the park for 10 days.

Fowler said Childress had several Whiteville-area addresses, plus some in Robeson County, that police found in the early days of the beating investigation.

Co-defendants with Childress are Reggie James Bellamy, 18, of Michael’s Pathway, Chadbourn and four males from Whiteville -- Christopher Dewayne “Snooky” Campbell, 19, of Chadbourn Highway; Christopher Paul “C Roll” Rowland, 17, of Pinewood Drive; Andrew Winfred Powell, 18, of Stanley Street; and Kendrick Brandon Bethea, 20, of Columbus Court Apartments along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

Fowler said six local police officers participated in last week’s arrest, and he wanted to thank the Sheriff’s Office for providing deputies every time he had to search locations in the rural areas around Whiteville. “They helped quickly every time I called,” the detective said.