De’Anthony Ellis, a 28-year-old Black man and local rapper, was killed in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 21, 2021. He was a beloved brother, remembered by his sister Ashley who later wrote, “I love and miss you so much bro!!” His life was cut short in a violent encounter that unfolded in a grocery store parking lot.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., a shootout erupted in the parking lot of the Food Lion at 9021 Albemarle Road in east Charlotte.
A manager at a nearby tobacco store heard what he estimated to be 10 gunshots and saw cars scattering from the scene, which he later described as being “like a war.” When Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers arrived, they found De’Anthony Ellis with serious injuries from an apparent gunshot wound. Medics transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The investigation quickly gained momentum when two men, Xavier East and Divine Miller, arrived at a hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. Homicide Unit detectives, working with officers from the Hickory Division, determined that East and Miller were the suspects in the shooting that killed Ellis.
After receiving medical treatment for their injuries, East, then 22, and Miller, then 23, were interviewed by detectives. At the conclusion of their interviews, both men were arrested and taken to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, where they were charged with murder.
The case concluded when Xavier East, 27, and Divine Miller, 27, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the killing of De’Anthony Ellis on August 8, 2025.
