Hickory shooting suspect’s tip led police to ammo, PS5 in Charlotte apartment
A search warrant reveals new details about the recent mass shooting at a Catawba County pool party.
That shooting on June 1 shook the small Mountain View community. One person died and 11 others were injured. Six people in their teens and twenties have been charged.
A prosecutor said the shooting was gang-related earlier this month.
At least two suspects turned on others, which led police to evidence, according to the search warrant reviewed by The Charlotte Observer. A North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation special agent requested a judge’s permission for the search on June 5 and carried it out the next day. The record became public last week.
The SBI seized evidence at an apartment near Charlotte Douglas International Airport after suspect Garon Killian shared information, the search warrant says.
What suspects, witnesses told police
Law enforcement arrested Killian on June 3. In interviews, he told them that he had firsthand knowledge of the shooting and named others he said were responsible, according to the search warrant.
By his account, he and four other people who have since been charged were at a house in Lenoir “a short time after” the mass shooting.
At the Lenoir house, suspects Toland Huff Jr. and Izaiah Mitchell had guns on them, Killian claimed. They and others talked about “shooting up the party,” the search warrant said.
Killian told police that he, Simpson, Huff, Mitchell, Zachary Bates and Ke’Andre Mack fled to Charlotte.
The warrant says that Zoe Braswell, charged with being an accessory, drove them there.
Killian “admitted to touching/manipulating… a handgun he believed was used during the shooting,” the records says, and claimed that he and five others in the case were “active in a criminal gang network.”
They all spoke “frequently” by phone about criminal activity, the SBI agent said in his search warrant application.
Someone else — who has not been charged — told the SBI that Killian asked someone to “scope the party out” and said he planned to “air it out” just days before the shooting, according to the search warrant. Two days before the shooting, Killian and Toland warned someone else to “watch out” if they went to the party, it says.
Killian also claimed that Mitchell and Bates said they let “switches ring,” a reference to gunfire.
Mack also gave police information, according to the search warrant, and implicated Mitchell as a shooter.
What the SBI took
The special agent asked for permission to seize a wide range of evidence: call logs, text messages in any cellphone, guns, clothing and “any and all items deemed to have evidentiary value.”
A judge gave the go-ahead. The SBI seized a black iPhone, a PlayStation 5, a gray iPhone, a “black bag containing men’s clothing” and 9mm ammunition.
Similar searches were made in Catawba County, the Hickory Daily Record reported.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.