Fairborn hotel shooting suspect makes court appearance

UPDATE @ 1:15 p.m. (March 15):

The man accused in the fatal shooting of a Hampton Inn hotel clerk made a court appearance in Fairborn Municipal Court Thursday.

The case against Michael McLendon, 24, has been bound over to common pleas court in Greene County, according to officials at the Fairborn Municipal Court.

Additional details were not immediately available.

Prosecutors requested earlier this week McLendon be held on $1 million bond.

FIRST REPORT (March 13):

A Dayton man faces murder and aggravated robbery charges in the shooting death of a Hampton Inn hotel clerk in Fairborn last week, the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office announced Monday.

Prosecutors said Michael McLendon, 24, admitted to shooting the clerk, 29-year-old Andrew Day, of Fairborn. Prosecutors requested he be held on $1 million bond.

MORE COVERAGE:

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Charges against McLendon may be elevated as the investigation continues, the prosecutor told Fairborn Municipal Court Judge Beth Cappelli in a written court record.

McLendon told police he shot Day after cash was taken from the hotel’s cash register drawer, according to court records.

McLendon was convicted for aggravated robbery in 2013 in Montgomery County for a robbery that occurred on Oct. 6, 2010. He was sentenced to four years, with 241 days served, and was released on Aug. 24, 2017, according to court records.

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He “is a suspect in other robbery cases,” Monday’s court records reveal, though the documents do not reveal the circumstances surrounding the other cases.

McLendon was taken into custody Friday at the Eagle Ridge Apartments on Needmore Road. Around 2 p.m., officers gathered at the facility with guns drawn. McLendon exited a building on the apartment complex campus with his hands up.

Prosecutors said McLendon “has a juvenile record, misdemeanor offenses for assault and theft as an adult, and has a parole violator warrant from the Ohio Adult Parole Authority.”

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Police initially said there were two suspects in the case, each young males wearing dark clothing who possibly fled in a white, late-1990s Buick-style sedan.

A 911 caller told dispatchers about 7:20 p.m. Wednesday he and others at the hotel found the clerk shot behind the counter. He also said that others in the lobby were applying pressure to the victim’s wound as emergency crews responded to the scene.

Day was a 2007 graduate of Tecumseh High School and married his wife in 2013, according to Greene County Probate Court records. He also was a part-time photographer who worked with families “to capture special moments,” according to his social media.

A visitation for Day will be held from 6-8 p.m., Tuesday at Belton-Stroup Funeral Home in Fairborn, according to an obituary published in the Dayton Daily News.

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