Eric Hobbs, age 51, a man from Castle Hayne, North Carolina, was found dead on September 6, 2025, inside a home on Davis Lane after deputies with the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office responded to a call about a suspicious person shortly after 1 p.m. When deputies entered the residence at 3329 Davis Lane, they discovered two victims—Eric Hobbs, age 51, and Rebia Hobbs, age 75—both suffering from fatal gunshot wounds. The scene was quiet but grim, a family home turned crime scene in a matter of moments, and the address would soon anchor a case that drew quick attention from local authorities.
As word spread through Castle Hayne, investigators worked swiftly. Within hours, they identified a suspect with close family ties to the victims. The New Hanover County Sheriff's Office announced the arrest of 35-year-old Shan Shawon Hobbs, described as Rebia's grandson and Eric's nephew, and charged him with two counts of first-degree murder. He was booked into the New Hanover County Detention Facility without bond. The arrest records and subsequent reporting fixed the time, place, and charges, binding the tragedy to a single Saturday afternoon and to a family suddenly fractured by violence.
Two days later, on Monday, September 8, 2025, the accused appeared in court for the first time. In that initial appearance, he pleaded not guilty to both counts, requested a court-appointed attorney, and was ordered held with no bond; a follow-up court date was set for September 25. The formalities of the courtroom—names spoken for the record, charges read aloud, the next date set—stood in stark, almost clinical contrast to the suddenness of the violence that ended the lives of Eric Hobbs, age 51, and Rebia Hobbs in their own home.
In the days that followed, Eric Hobbs, age 51, was publicly remembered as a life cut short by gunfire, his name added to gun-violence ledgers and memorial pages that mark the place and date—Castle Hayne, September 6, 2025—beside an age and a candle. Yet behind those lines lived a man whose absence was felt first by those who knew him, then recorded, sparingly and soberly, by the obituaries that announced his passing and the memorial notices that traced the path to his funeral service. Investigators have not publicly named any additional suspects beyond the arrested nephew, and no other arrests have been reported in the case.
