On December 31, 1994, Deborah Hunter age 37, was shot and killed inside the Puppy Creek Family Fun Center, an arcade the family operated on Rockfish Road in rural Hoke County, North Carolina. Her husband, Jamie Hunter, age 39, was also killed. During the attack, Deborah Hunter age 37, shielded the couple’s 15-year-old daughter, Mary Ann, who was struck and left permanently paralyzed from the chest down. Public records and contemporary reporting do not specify Deborah Hunter’s ethnicity; no authoritative source identified her ethnicity in coverage of the crime.
Investigators determined that the gunman, 18-year-old Rodriguez Ferguson, had come to the arcade intending to rob a patron, and once there he opened fire, killing four people and wounding a fifth. In addition to Deborah Hunter age 37, the victims at the arcade were Jamie Hunter, age 39, Tim Powell, age 20, and Steve Locklear, age 18; Mary Ann Hunter survived but was paralyzed. A few hours later, in the early morning of January 1, 1995, Ferguson shot and killed James Morrison, age 31, outside the Zodiac Lounge on Vass Road. Ethnicities for the deceased were not reported in the court opinions or local archives consulted.
Ferguson was taken into custody on January 2, 1995. After waiving his Miranda rights, he told a Hoke County detective that he had “shot them all.” He was charged with five counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. In December 1997, a jury convicted him on all five first-degree murder counts; in March 1998 reporting, he is described as having been ordered to serve five consecutive life sentences plus an additional 9–12 years.
Contemporaneous local coverage also documents that Mica Janard McDonald—identified as the driver who transported Ferguson during the “murderous round”—received a plea-bargained sentence of 29 to 44 months for his role. Authorities and news accounts from the time do not attribute any other suspects with direct responsibility for the killings beyond Ferguson, and the case resulted in convictions rather than remaining unsolved.
Genealogical records corroborate key biographical details for Deborah Hunter age 37, including the date of death and burial in Raeford Cemetery, Hoke County. These records, like the news and court sources, do not list her ethnicity.
