Jury Acquits Garyonded Stepney in 2021 Green Level Cartel-Linked Shooting

A Guilford County man, Garyonded Stepney, was found not guilty of first-degree murder in connection with a 2021 shooting at a Green Level residence after a five-day Alamance County superior court trial and less than a half-hour of jury deliberation. The jury returned a unanimous verdict shortly before 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, following closing arguments that lasted a little over an hour-and-a-half and judge’s charge development earlier that day.

Investigators have described the scene as a Green Level home and local reporting also identified it as a Green Level mobile home; Sheriff Terry Johnson characterized the location at the time as a cartel-linked "stash house." Two men were killed in the incident: 18-year-old Alonzo Beltran Lara, who was reported found bound with tape and with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, and 39-year-old Barney Dale Harris, identified as a Union County teacher and reported found dead in a bedroom wearing a mask and a bulletproof vest.

Prosecutors argued the defendants had gone to the Green Level address to rob what was believed to be a drug stash house and that a shootout ensued after they encountered Lara. To secure a first-degree murder conviction the prosecution was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stepney committed robbery with a dangerous weapon and killed Lara. The prosecution’s theory was that Stepney and two accomplices had plotted the robbery and been interrupted, resulting in the shootings.

Courtroom proceedings included Judge Doug Green presiding, with prosecutor Alex Bass and defense attorney Don Carter involved in developing the jury instructions that morning and early afternoon. Jurors were explicitly told: "the defendant is not guilty of crime merely because the defendant is present at the scene, even though the defendant may silently approve of the crime or secretly intend to assist in its commission. To be guilty, the defendant must aid or actively encourage the person committing the crime, or in some way communicate to another person the defendant’s intention to assist in its commission." Defense counsel Don Carter emphasized there was "no direct evidence" tying Stepney to the murder during trial presentations.

A co-defendant, Steven Alexander Stewart Jr., had been charged with first-degree murder in the same case but pleaded down to second-degree murder and was sentenced to between 15 years, 10 months, and 20 years in prison. Stepney, while acquitted of the Alamance County first-degree murder charge, remains subject to unrelated drug trafficking and other drug-related charges pending in Guilford and Forsyth counties.

The unanimous not-guilty verdict closes the murder charge against Stepney in Alamance County but leaves outstanding criminal exposure in other jurisdictions and sustained local attention on the sheriff’s characterization of the Green Level site as cartel-linked. The court record shows the jury applied the felony-murder standard and the presence-versus-participation instruction before issuing its verdict.