CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — A man has been arrested after a mother and daughter were shot and killed in Cleveland County, according to the sheriff’s office.
On Monday, deputies were called to a home on Casar Road where they found two bodies inside a car in the driveway. The victims were identified as Laurie Ann Marks and Kimberly Renee McNeilly.
Deputies said while they were at the scene, they learned the suspect, 32-year-old Thomas Gene Eaker, was at a home on Oakgrove-Cloverhill Church Road. They went to the home and arrested him.
“We have faced death from old age, disease, and car wrecks, but nothing like this,” said John Warlick, a relative.
Marks and her adult daughter, McNeilly, cared for Marks’ elderly mother at the home.
Marks called 911 on her boyfriend that morning.
She said Eaker was loud and rude but not dangerous.
Officers responded and Eaker left.
Less than an hour later, the mother and daughter were found shot to death.
“It’s very difficult to accept it,” John Warlick said.
Eaker lived at the home with Marks and kept a gun there.
Relatives said they trusted him to protect the women there.
“It’s senseless the way it happened,” said Deanna Warlick, a relative. “It’s crazy nobody would ever in a million years have expected this to happen. Nice guy. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know.”
Marks’ elderly mother was in the house and didn’t know the shooting happened outside.
McNeilly’s six-year-old daughter was also inside when the shots were fired.
“It doesn’t make any sense why someone would do that, not to one person but two people,” Deanna Warlick said.
Eaker was given no bond and was taken to the Cleveland County jail. He was charged with two counts of murder.
Investigators said while they did discover Marks and Eaker had been dating, Eaker’s motive is still not clear.
No further information was released.
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