Arrest made after mass shooting at Hickory party that left 1 dead, 11 injured
A 20-year-old man was arrested days after after a party where one person was fatally shot and 11 others injured, the Catawba County sheriff announced Tuesday.
Garon Nathaniel Killian, of Lenoir, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
Additional arrests will be coming, the sheriff’s office said.
Law enforcement responded Saturday at 11 p.m. to a noise complaint at a house on Walnut Acres Drive in southwest Catawba County’s Mountain View community.
Less than two hours later, police responded to the shooting that left 58-year-old Shawn Patrick Hood dead.
Sunday’s party had been advertised in a social media post as a “topless pool party.”
Users on Facebook and on a Hickory subreddit posted images from Snapchat about the party and video from before people fled to a nearby neighborhood to escape gunfire around 12:45 a.m. Law enforcement released a drone video of the house in question, which is at 1125 Walnut Acres Drive in the Mountain View community near Hickory.
Another post on Reddit said attendees would pay $20 to enter and need an ID to enter.
A two-minute video, purportedly of the party, has been circulating on Facebook. The person filming showed a backyard filled with people who appeared to be in their late teens to early 20s drinking and playing games. Some people hid their face as the camera came up to them while others laughed and made jokes. No one in the video was topless.
The person filming also made two posts on Snapchat after the shooting.
“Prayers to the ones they didn’t get to make it home,” a screenshot said. “prayers to the ones that did make it home.”
20-year-old charged
Killian is being held without bond at the jail in Newton, authorities said.
According to a Hickory police news release, Killian was charged in April in an unrelated shooting. Police responded to Catawba Valley Boulevard early in the morning on April 6, where shots had been fired into a crowd during a fight. No one was injured.
Police charged Killian and another man with seven counts of attempted first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, going armed to the terror of the public, and discharging a firearm in the city limits.
At the most recent shooting this weekend, police said some, but not all people injured were shot. They have not given an exact number of those shot, and the names of those injured haven’t been released. The youngest person injured was 16, according to the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities have said more than 80 shots were fired, which sent many of the party goers through a nearby field and into the adjacent neighborhood on Winding Oak Drive.
They ask anyone with video footage from the area to reach out to them.
This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 5:53 PM.
