Police in North Carolina are investigating after a 26-year-old woman was shot and killed in a Mocksville apartment.
According to the Davie County Sheriff’s Office, around 7:30 a.m. on Monday there was a shooting at Rowan Pointe Apartments in Mocksville.
Officials say that they believe that 78-year-old Harold Reid Jr. shot and killed 26-year-old Quintia Miller who was staying in the Rowan Pointe Apartments with family.
Officers with the US Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force and the Davie County Sheriff’s Office were at the apartments attempting to locate a wanted person in an unrelated matter when they heard shots fired.
The sheriff’s office says officers witnessed the suspect shooting the victim and responded. A US Marshal shot at the suspect, and he was taken into custody. He was not shot.
According to the sheriff’s office, Reid was due in court to be tried for a first-degree sexual offense and indecent liberties with a child on Monday.
They believe that he went to the apartments looking for a person involved in the case against him in order to keep them from participating in the case. Deputies believe that he mistook Miller for the person he was looking for, shooting and killing her.
Investigators believe Reid came to the apartment complex looking for Shavonne Barnes, who was involved in the sexual assault case against him to stop her from testifying Monday.
“I saw Quintia lying face down, and…Reid Jr. laying on top of her,” Barnes said. “The attack should have never been her. The bullet was meant for me.”
“Whenever I was a child around 10-12 years old, he was sexually molesting me,” Barnes said.
She wanted to tell her story to help prevent him from doing it to anyone else. It would have been a small victory for her especially after he was released around a year ago on the charge.
“I knew from the point of his release, his goal was to kill me, and he made that very clear. I also watched him lay on the ground, and his words to me were…’I was coming for you,’” she said. “Not only did he violate me, but he’s also taken an innocent life because he’s a coward.”
Now a memorial sits in the place Miller lost her life.
“It’s not fair to be silent. Silence kills. He’s proven that today…silence has taken her life, and we can never get her back,” Barnes said.
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