GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Police have arrested three suspects after two people were found shot to death along a rural county road late Thursday in Gaston County.
Police charged Kaleb Isiah Carver, 21, of Taylorsville, with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder.
Michael Shane Barnes, 19, of Taylorsville, faces the same charges.
On Tuesday morning, authorities said a third suspect, a 16-year-old, was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Police are not releasing that suspect’s name due to her age.
Authorities were called just before midnight last Thursday to the scene on Lowery Wood Road and Lewis Farm Road near Bessemer City where they found two men dead.
Police said the victims were Robert “Luke” Gibby, 22, of Bessemer City, and Adam Kale Wood, 19, of Kings Mountain.
Investigators also said that about two hours after the shooting call, 21-year-old Todd Payton Lee Waggoner, of Winston-Salem, showed up at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem with injuries considered to be non-life-threatening.
He told officials that he survived by playing dead after he had been shot four times.
Investigators have said the shooting apparently happened during a marijuana sale, according to our partners at the Gaston Gazette.
Barnes and Carver made their first court appearances in Gaston County District Court on Tuesday, where a judge denied them bond.
The 16-year-old suspect is a minor and didn’t have a public hearing, but police said she was with Barnes when he was arrested -- the day after his 19th birthday.
Police haven’t revealed much about why they believe all three suspects were in Gaston County last week, but they said the trio all left in the same car after the shooting.
In court on Tuesday, the prosecutor said Gibby and Wood were shot in the back.
“I’d like to get bond because I have a 1-year-old daughter,” Carver said to the judge on Tuesday. “This isn’t me. Look at my record. I don’t have anything on my record.”
Carver’s request was denied.
The 16-year-old may be indicted and face charges as an adult, officials said.
Waggoner, who survived the shooting, is also in jail facing several drug charges.
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Marvin Mundy, who lives near the scene, said that after he heard the gunshots, he saw a car drive up the street. It was raining hard, and Mundy could barely see the car with a bullet hole in the driver’s side window, but he said he heard someone in the car pleading to someone in another car that drove to the scene.
“I heard a man say, ‘I’ve been shot and robbed. Call 911,’” Mundy said.
Mundy called 911. He said police arrived a couple of minutes later and stopped him from getting closer to the scene.
“(The police officer) said there were two dead bodies and not to get close to the car,” Mundy said.
Mundy told Channel 9 he was still in disbelief hours after the shooting.
“It’s hard to believe somebody could lose their life that fast,” Mundy said.
Mundy said he found out that he knew one of the victims, Woods, several hours after the deadly shooting. They live in the same neighborhood.
“He was a nice boy,” Mundy said. “Why would a guy have to kill two people?”
Channel 9 crews could see crime scene investigators and detectives looking at a car that had a bullet hole through the driver’s side front windshield.
A neighbor told Eyewitness News he woke up to gunshots.
“I woke up, I heard pops -- I didn’t really know what it was at first and I kept hearing cop cars go by,” the witness said. “I finally got up and looked and seen all the lights and I came outside and I didn’t really know what was going on until I come on out here.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the Gaston County Police Department at (704) 866-3320 or Crime Stoppers at (704) 861-8000.
Check back with wsoctv.com for updates on this story.
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