Insets, top to bottom: Sam’on Smith (Mecklenburg County Jail) and Ina Michelle Lang (GoFundMe). Background: The Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Smith allegedly killed Lang (WSOC/YouTube).
A North Carolina woman who worked about 20 years as a Bank of America employee was shot to death as she smoked a cigarette outside a Charlotte branch, her family believes.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded shortly after 10:30 a.m. Friday to the Bank of America in the 9700 block of Callabridge Court for a shooting. When officers arrived at the scene, they found 50-year-old Ina Michelle Lang suffering from a gunshot wound. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
Cops quickly identified 22-year-old Sam’on Andrew Smith as a suspect and took him into custody. He’s facing a first-degree murder charge.
Police have not disclosed a motive for the slaying. The victim’s family members told local ABC affiliate WSOC they believe she was attacked while she was on her smoke break.
Lang’s co-workers started a GoFundMe account to help her husband raise money for her funeral.
“Ina Lang was a beloving mother and a committed wife with her husband Mike,” the account description says. “She had the most amazing work ethic having been at Bank of America for over 20 years in Charlotte where her life was taken from her over a senseless shooting. We will always remember Ina as one of the strongest employees we’ve worked with and she treated our team as a family. She brought a motherly spirit to our team and will always be remembered as someone that never missed an opportunity to give, and having a heart bigger than she knew what to do with.”
WSOC spoke with Smith’s uncle, who said the suspect was arrested at his mother’s house.
“My sister told me that the police was surrounding the house and she needed me over there,” George Wise said in an interview with the outlet.
Wise called his nephew a “good dude” and said he was never the type of person who was “on the block or out there banging.”
Smith is at the Mecklenburg County Jail without bond.
