With four homicides in two days, Charlotte rings out a violent year
THIS STORY WAS UPDATED ON JAN. 4, 2025, WITH NEWS OF AN ARREST IN THE KILLING OF DIONDRE BITTLE.
For Charlotte, the end of 2024 and the start of 2025 brought a rash of grim news.
Police reported four homicides in two days — on Dec. 29 and 30 — adding to the city’s heavy toll of gun violence and capping a year when Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police investigated more than 100 homicides.
Details from police reports are scant but they provide some specifics:
▪ The first of the recent homicides happened on Sunday, just before 1 pm. Police found 18-year-old Jordyn Decedric Campbell with a gunshot wound in the 3200 block of Nobles Avenue, just east of Billy Graham Parkway, MEDIC pronounced him dead on the scene.
▪ About 10 hours later, police found three people who had been shot in the 7800 block of University City Boulevard, a busy stretch just east of I-85. One of them, 35-year-old Wonah Abu-Baby Konte Jr., was pronounced dead at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center.
▪ On Monday, shortly after 9:15 pm, police found 33-year-old Diondre Bittle had been shot to death in the 8200 block of Dave McKinney Avenue — just to the south of the previous homicide on University City Boulevard.
On Friday, police said they arrested 35-year-old Sabrina Nayeele Roth and charged her with murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit armed robbery in connection with Bittle’s killing.
▪ Less than an hour after responding to that shooting, police discovered a fourth homicide victim — 31-year-old Cameron Lackey. He’d apparently been shot in the 10300 block of Old Camden Road, about 17 miles east of uptown Charlotte. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The gunfire continued on New Year’s Day, with police reporting two west Charlotte shootings that left victims with life-threatening injuries, MEDIC said. One shooting occurred at Mr. C’s restaurant on West Morehead Street, just west of I-77, police say. The other happened on Remount Road, near West Boulevard.
The names of those victims have not yet been released.
The spate of shootings follow another where an officer shot and killed a man on Saturday outside Coyote Joe’s nightclub on Wilkinson Boulevard.
The officer shot and killed Lucas Armstrong, 28, who worked security at the nightclub.
Armstrong had been holding a gun to his head in the moments before police shot him to death, police radio traffic revealed.
Police have said the officer who fired perceived an imminent deadly threat, but they’ve released few other details so far.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Police ask anyone with information about the recent shootings to call the CMPD Homicide Unit at 704-432-TIPS and speak directly to a detective. Anonymous tips can be offered through Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600 or http://charlottecrimestoppers.com.
This story was originally published January 1, 2025 at 4:55 PM.
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