Nash County North Carolina

Four charged in Nash deputy's homicide

KINSTON – Four Kinston men are being held in the Lenoir County jail without bond in connection with Thursday’s fatal shooting of a Nash County deputy working with the U.S. Marshal’s Eastern North Carolina Violent Fugitive Task Force.

At a press conference Friday, Kinston Public Safety Director Bill Johnson said the events leading to Nash County Sheriff’s Investigator Warren “Sneak” Lewis death started with a slaying a week prior. Police were called to an intersection in Kinston around 11:30 p.m. June 2, where officers found Thomas Hinton, 31, with a gunshot wound to the chest.

Hinton died at the scene and detectives began the investigation of his death. On Monday, investigators obtained murder warrants against Lamont D. Byrd, 18, and Kion Tyearl Dail, 16.

Kinston authorities called in the Marshal’s Eastern N.C. Violent Fugitive Task Force to help locate the suspects. Johnson said about 20 task force members and Kinston police officers executed a search warrant around 1 p.m. Thursday at a house on the 600 block of West Lenoir Avenue. Authorities reportedly seized numerous firearms, but the suspects were not located.

Johnson said task force members received additional information about the suspects and four returned to the scene around 7 p.m. Thursday. While officers were walking around the house, someone fired multiple gunshots through one of the doors on the suspects’ house, hitting Lewis several times. Lewis was taken to Lenoir Memorial Hospital where he died.

“The morning operation was actually a tactical operation,” Johnson said. “At the time when we served the search warrant, we believed (the suspects) were on the scene, so we had extra officers, extra security, extra protection.

“It was not a tactical operation later in the evening, it was part of the ongoing operation. (The officers) were in the area gathering information when the shots were fired.”

He said Lewis was wearing body armor, but bullets either penetrated the armor or missed the armor. The number of shots and the caliber of the weapon still are under investigation, which is being handled by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation.

Johnson said officers were able to talk the suspects out of the home after an hour and a half. According to a Nash County Sheriff’s office press release, Lamont Byrd and Dail were charged with two counts of murder – one for their part in Lewis’ death and one for Hinton’s shooting. Lamont Byrd’s brother, 26-year-old Maretto Byrd, and Devine Slade, 17, were charged with one count of murder in connection with Lewis’ homicide.

Nash County Sheriff's Office North Carolina - Officer Down ...

Investigator Lewis had served with the Nash County Sheriff's Office for nine years and was a sworn Deputy United States Marshal assigned to the Eastern North Carolina Fugitive Task Force. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and parents.

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Nash County, North Carolina

Nash County, North Carolina

The Pridgen family of Sapony Creek, Nash County, North Carolina, some of the descendants of William Pridgen d. ca. 1762

Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina from the colonial period to about 1820

North Carolina schools and academies, 1790-1840, a documentary history