2 arrested after 1 shot dead in home robbery attempt in Catawba County

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By Dave Faherty

CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. — A heated confrontation between two families occurred less than 24 hours after a 17-year-old was shot and killed near Maiden.

Catawba County deputies said the shooting happened at a home on Fairview Drive just before 6 p.m. but authorities found 17-year-old Shane Cauthen in a vehicle off Startown and Blackburn Ridge roads in Lincoln County around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.

(Shane Cauthen)

Investigators said Cauthen had been driven there.

Deputies said Cauthen and Dylan Lee Gates and Cory Aaron Ingram came to a home on Fairview Drive on Wednesday wearing masks, intending to rob someone at the home.

Gates and Ingram were arrested and charged with attempted robbery.

(Corey Aaron Ingram, Dylan Lee Gates)

Investigators said another 17-year-old pulled the trigger, shooting Cauthen four times.

Cauthen was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Family members of the shooter said they received threats overnight and into Thursday morning.

When Cauthen's family arrived at the home Thursday, the brother of the shooter stood in the driveway with an AR-15 rifle and repeatedly asked them to leave.

The shooter’s family was concerned there would be more violence, while the other family was there to mourn Cauthen’s death.

Deputies said they did not charge the brother holding the rifle because he thought his life was being threatened.

Cauthen’s family doesn't believe that it was a case of self-defense and that someone should be charged.

“I think they should be charging him. If somebody gets shot four times, I mean, that was aiming at him,” Cauthen's grandmother, Diane said.

“He was going to better his self. He needed four more credits to graduate,” his mother, Shanda, told Channel 9.

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