According to a sheriff on Monday, a man in North Carolina who is suspected of carrying out a string of shootings that resulted in the deaths of three people was taken into custody after the son of two victims of an elderly couple who were shot dead in their house held the suspect at gunpoint until help arrived.
Pitt County Sheriff Paula Dance told reporters that if a victim’s family had not stepped in, there would have been more victims.
According to Dance, a search warrant showed that the 55-year-old suspected shooter, David Lever, had at least 50 guns in his house.
According to Dance, numerous additional firearms were found in the vehicle that Lever allegedly drove on Friday throughout Greenville, southeast of Raleigh, where he opened fire at four different locations.
The fatalities were named by the sheriff’s office as Paula Gribble, 76; Enrique Reyes, 64; and Anthony Gribble, 80.
According to the sheriff’s office, Lever is anticipated to face three murder charges. Lever described the district court judge presiding over his case with an expletive at his initial court appearance on Monday, according to Greenville’s NBC affiliate WITN.
According to the station, he was designated a public defender and ordered to be jailed without bond.
According to Dance, officials are looking into potential links between Lever and the victims, and a reason for the shootings is still unknown.
According to Dance, Reyes is thought to have been shot and killed first. At 3:35 p.m., a 911 caller reported seeing a man lying in a driveway west of Greenville, and Dance added that the man was discovered deceased at his residence.
Reyesas was recognized by WITN as a retired professor of biology at a university.
According to the addresses Dance gave, Lever’s house was less than 0.5 miles from Reyes’. About two hours before his death was discovered, at 1:20 p.m., Reyes came home from a grocery shop, and Lever was seen entering and exiting his own home at the same time by neighborhood cameras.
Dance stated that the incident was caught on camera when Lever drove away from a nearby gas station at 1:44 p.m., less than 20 minutes after he was caught leaving his house, firing bullets from the van as he went.
That shooting did not result in any injuries.
According to Dance, the son of Anthony and Paula Gribble called the police thirty-three minutes later, less than two and a half miles away, to report that his parents had been shot dead.
According to the sheriff, the son claimed to be holding the alleged shooter for the authorities. She further said that Lever was “promptly” brought into jail.
Investigators suspect a fourth location, which deputies arrived to at 2:50 p.m., is connected to Lever, Dance said. Although no one was home, it is thought that a house near Lever’s was shot into, according to Dance.
“We have reason to believe he was perpetrator of this crime as well,” she continued.
The date of Lever’s upcoming court appearance is January 29.