A Covington man was arrested and charged in connection with a recently cracked cold case of armed robbery-turned-murder in Virginia that occurred almost 10 years ago.

Dedric D. Sherrod, 31, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, robbery, using a gun in commission of a felony and conspiracy for the 1998 shooting death of Melik Powell in the semi-rural city of Suffolk, Va.

Powell, 26, had been using a payphone near his home in the parking lot of a shopping center around 11:51 p.m. on Nov. 10, 1998, when he was shot during a robbery, according to an article in The Virginian-Pilot.

 Powell called 911 and emergency personnel arrived in minutes, but he died on the way to the hospital.

Sherrod was arrested at his home on the morning of March 6 by Covington police and held at the Newton County Detention Center for Suffolk Police.

 Another man involved in the murder, Demetrious Lamont Neely, 30, of Chesapeake, Va., was located in another Virginia city jail for unrelated narcotics and weapons charges and received the same charges as Sherrod.

The case, one which detectives had wanted to solve for some time, was assigned to Sgt. Stephen Smith, a 31-year police veteran, when he became the Suffolk Police Department's first cold-case investigator last June.

The breakthrough hinged on a person with key information eventually stepping forward, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

Smith came to Newton County and interviewed Sherrod last December, before obtaining a grand jury indictment and warrant for Sherrod's arrest last Thursday, said CPD Detective Daniel Seals, who participated in the arrest.