Trials loom for 3 in mysterious case of a Lake Norman business leader shot on a boat
The first of three defendants in the July 10 shooting of a Lake Norman business leader on a boat is scheduled to stand trial Monday, court records show, in a case that also involves sex charges.
Tom McMahon, a longtime Charlotte-area commercial real estate broker and community leader, was hospitalized in serious and stable condition after the shooting at a Troutman marina, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. The sheriff’s office hasn’t updated McMahon’s condition since the week after he was shot.
Public records show McMahon is 58 and lives in a $1.5 million lakefront home about 4 miles from where he was shot. Troutman is roughly 35 miles north of Charlotte.
Markis Allan Kirkpatrick, a 30-year-old Charlotte resident, is scheduled for trial in Iredell County Superior Court in Statesville on Monday.
Deputies arrested Kirkpatrick at the scene on a charge of felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, according to court documents.
Two women also were arrested on drug and prostitution charges, an Observer review of the case file in the Iredell County Clerk of Superior Court’s office shows.
Keishari Chanel-Wicks Johnson, 30, of Las Vegas, Nevada, faces trial Nov. 7 on charges of felony conspiracy to sell and deliver a controlled substance and misdemeanor conspiracy to “commit prostitution against McMahon,” according to the charges in a sheriff’s office arrest warrant in the file.
Johnson is accused of conspiring on the prostitution count with a third defendant, 22-year-old Charlotte resident Andiaye Tyler, court records show.
Tyler is likewise charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to commit prostitution and felony conspiracy to sell and deliver a controlled substance, which arrest warrants say was cocaine.
According to the warrants, Tyler “did unlawfully agree to perform a sexual act” July 10.
Someone called in a kidnapping
The sheriff’s investigation began after deputies responded to a report of a kidnapping at 4:30 a.m. in the 1100 block of Perth Road, north of Mooresville on Lake Norman.
The address released to the media by investigators after the shooting matched that of the Safe Harbor Skippers Landing marina, according to public records.
A woman who answered the phone at the marina days after the shooting told the Observer that the victim “was not one of our customers” and the boat “was not one of our boats.”
Victim found with two gunshot wounds
Sheriff’s investigators saw “two females and a male standing in the parking lot near the walkway leading to the pier,” according to a sheriff’s office news release after the shooting.
“As the deputies approached the three, the male told them there was another person on a boat who was shot,” according to the release.
“While gathering additional information, the deputies went to the area where the boats were tied up and located a male with two gunshot wounds.”
Deputies found a semiautomatic pistol, three loaded magazines and a bag with additional items in the parking lot, according to the release, which didn’t specify the items found in the bag.
“The scene was secured and Iredell County EMS arrived and took the gunshot victim to an area trauma center for emergency treatment and surgery,” sheriff’s investigators said in the release.
No one is talking
How a respected business and community leader ended up in such a situation remains a mystery, as no one involved in the case is talking publicly as the trials near.
Tyler, whose trial is scheduled for Dec. 5, didn’t respond to a recent phone message from the Observer. Neither did the court-appointed lawyers for the three defendants.
The phone number listed for Kirkpatrick in court records is no longer in service. The number in the court file for Johnson rang to a motel where the man who answered said she isn’t listed as a guest.
Commercial real estate success
The only phone number in public records for McMahon is no longer in service.
In the early 2000s, McMahon chaired the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce business growth committee..
With other business leaders, he helped create the Lake Norman Economic Development Corp. The nonprofit corporation works to attract businesses and industries to towns on the lake.
McMahon has closed more than 1,000 commercial real estate transactions in a career of more than 25 years, his LinkedIn profile shows.
He began in commercial real estate after 17 years as a quality control inspector at the former USAirways, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He spent 22 years as CEO and managing director of Cornelius-based Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Advisors, where he earned the Achiever Award for closing 22 transactions valued at $20 million in 2006, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time.
McMahon founded Cornelius-based Newport Commercial in December 1998 and owned the firm until 2003 , when he became managing director of SVN Commercial Real Estate in Charlotte, his LinkedIn profile shows.
He worked at SVN until 2021, the year he joined Lake Norman Realty Inc. as a commercial broker.