Anthony “A.J.” Marsh Jr. was a 27-year-old Black man known for his inspirational personality and welcoming smile. The son of a retired Durham, North Carolina, deputy police chief, A.J. was a specialist in the Army Reserve with the 363rd Engineer Battalion Support Company in Knightdale. A former classmate from Jordan High School remembered him as a “people person” who would “always light up the room” and was “the light we needed in every situation.”
On the afternoon of
April 19, 2021, Marsh was sitting in his Dodge Ram pickup in the 300 block of East Pilot Street in Durham when he was shot. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Later court filings revealed that the shooting followed a series of escalating events. A woman had driven two people, including a man named Toney Allen Smith Jr., to a nearby home for a planned fight. As they fled the scene, their vehicle struck Marsh’s truck. When Marsh followed them to ask about the collision, Smith shot him.
The investigation led to the arrests of two individuals. In early May 2021, an FBI task force arrested 39-year-old Nitisha Jewel Page, who was charged with murder and misdemeanor hit-and-run. A few days later, the U.S. Marshals Service arrested 21-year-old Toney Allen Smith Jr. and charged him with murder. Smith was held in the Durham County Jail without bond.
The criminal proceedings against the two defendants concluded with different outcomes. In July 2024, Toney Allen Smith Jr. was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in Marsh’s death. He was sentenced to a term of five to seven years in prison and is scheduled to be released in 2027.
The charges against Nitisha Page were dismissed. In February of the year her case was dismissed, a judge ruled that the state had acted in “bad faith,” citing missed deadlines and the fact that prosecutors had changed the charges against her four times. Following the conclusion of the criminal cases, Marsh’s father, Anthony Marsh Sr., filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Smith, Page, and a third individual. As of March 2026, he was still attempting to locate Page and the other defendant to serve them with the lawsuit.
