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At Marcilliat & Mills PLLC, our skilled Raleigh murder defense lawyers know that when our clients are charged with taking another person’s life in North Carolina, their criminal case literally becomes a fight for their own. Depending on the charges and the individual’s criminal history, our clients are facing life-changing prison sentences — or in some…

Faith Hedgepeth, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, was found beaten to death and possibly raped in September 2012. She was found naked from the waist down, propped against her bed in a pool of blood. A note saying “I’m not stupid b—– jealous” was discovered nearby. Now, police say…

It’s been a tough year all around, what with the pandemic, contentious election, racial injustices, riots. As if it couldn’t get any worse, violent crime is on the rise. Homicides have risen by an average of 24 percent nationwide. North Carolina is also seeing a sharp spike in homicides. The Queen City alone is on…

WILMINGTON, N.C. – Police responded to a shooting on Pinecrest Parkway hours before midnight on March 4, 2020. At the scene, they found a man with a gunshot wound — 57-year-old Donald Wayne Gurganious, who died of his injuries the following morning. Days later, police arrested 39-year-old James Girlee Hardy and charged him with First…

WILMINGTON, N.C. – Police have arrested 36-year-old resident of Wilmington, Ray Anthony Southers, who is now facing the charge of First Degree Murder after a deadly shooting near Greenfield Lake. Police said that Mr. Southers allegedly shot a woman to death in the early hours of April 15. According to reports, police responded to a shooting on…

CHARLOTTE, NC – On the morning of Wednesday, April 8, 2020, Mecklenburg Police Department officers responded to a shooting incident in a West Charlotte neighborhood. The call came in at around 7:20 a.m. Police arrived with a medic at the intersection of Willilyn Lane and Huntwood Drive to find a man with an apparent gunshot…

GREENSBORO, N.C. – 29-year-old Brittany McKinney was charged with three counts of First Degree Murder for allegedly shooting a man and two children. The victims were 61-year-old Jerry Griffin, McKinney’s 10-year-old daughter McKenzie, and her 2-year-old niece Serenity. The alleged incident happened on New Year’s Day. According to a CBS news article, on January 1, 2020, police responded…

*Warning: Spoilers ahead.* If you’ve been binge-watching Netflix’s new docuseries Tiger King to pass the long hours in quarantine, you’re not alone. More than 35 million Americans watched the show within the first ten days of its release. The series explores the wild world of big cat enthusiasts. It follows Joe Exotic, a gun-toting gay polygamist…

It was an early spring morning in March 2008 when Charlotte police made a gruesome discovery: Four people shot dead in a top-floor apartment. The bodies were “riddled with bullets,” yet nobody reported hearing gunshots. The apartment complex, in the Montclaire South neighborhood, had been a crime hotspot for years. Many of the other…

A Charlotte police officer was indicted on voluntary manslaughter charges this week, the second opportunity a Grand Jury has had to consider the facts and charges in the case. The first Grand Jury to review the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell declined to indict the Charlotte cop, Randall Kerrick, on voluntary manslaughter charges. That Grand Jury…