Michael Durbin, 56, a White male, was killed in a mass shooting at the American Fish Company waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina, on the night of September 27, 2025. Around 9:30 p.m., a lone gunman approached by boat on the Cape Fear River, paused alongside the dockside venue, and opened fire into the crowd. Three patrons were fatally wounded and several others were injured before the assailant fled toward the Intracoastal Waterway.
City officials later identified the dead as Solomon Banjo, 36, of Charlottesville, Virginia; Joy Rogers, 64, of Southport; and Michael Durbin, 56, of Galena, Ohio.
Witness accounts and city updates described a swift, coordinated response: local police, the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, and the U.S. Coast Guard converged on the waterfront while alerts went out advising residents to avoid the area. Approximately thirty minutes after the attack, Coast Guard personnel spotted a man matching the shooter’s description at the public boat ramp on NE 55th Street in Oak Island. The individual was detained with assistance from local officers and transferred into Southport police custody as investigators from multiple agencies processed the crime scene along the Yacht Basin.
Authorities arrested 40-year-old Nigel Max Edge and announced a slate of charges tied to the attack: three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder, and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Officials said there was no continuing public threat after the arrest. A subsequent briefing characterized the ambush as highly premeditated and targeted, noting that Edge allegedly fired from the boat into the bar before fleeing; he was apprehended while retrieving the boat at Oak Island. A probable-cause hearing was scheduled for October 13, 2025, at the Brunswick County Courthouse, and the investigation remains active.
In the days that followed, the city publicly named the victims and continued to request photos, videos, and statements from anyone present at the American Fish Company on September 26 and 27 to aid the case. Memorial notices and regional coverage identified Durbin as one of three lives cut short in the attack, with community vigils organized along the Southport waterfront as the town mourned and prosecutors began reviewing the case for potential capital charges.
