Tahj Malik Bazemore, a 25-year-old male from Merry Hill, North Carolina, whose ethnicity was not publicly stated, died on August 5, 2025. According to local authorities, the shooting unfolded in the parking lot of a convenience store in the 700 block of NC-45 North, where two other Merry Hill residents—19-year-old Jahquavion Carter and 20-year-old Ahmarion Thompson—were wounded and airlifted for treatment.
Deputies arrived to find the scene contained, with no immediate threat to the broader public, while confirming that the 25-year-old victim, identified as Tahj Bazemore, had died from his injuries.
In the hours and days after the gunfire, Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin told the community that investigators were combing surveillance footage from the store to piece together what happened and to identify those who fired the shots. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation joined the Sheriff’s Office, lending additional resources to a case that had shaken the Merry Hill area. Early statements remained spare by design, the department saying little beyond the death, the two medical evacuations, and the assurance that deputies were working the case methodically.
As friends and family prepared to honor him, an obituary confirmed the loss of Tahj “GEE” Malik Bazemore, born December 21, 1999, noting his roots in Hertford County and his ties to the Merry Hill community. Arrangements announced a service on August 16, 2025, underscoring how quickly the shock of the crime gave way to a public farewell. The words memorializing the 25-year-old spoke to loved ones left behind and fixed the date of his death—August 5, 2025—just days before the community gathered to mourn.
While investigators continued to seek those directly responsible for the killing, a separate arrest emerged a month later: on September 5, 2025, a Roxobel man, 25-year-old Nasir A’mire Brown, turned himself in after being charged with felony solicitation to commit murder. Authorities alleged Brown had used social media to solicit violence against the survivors of the August 5 shooting. Even with that development, the Sheriff emphasized that the homicide itself remained unsolved and that no one had yet been charged in Bazemore’s death.
By late summer, deputies were still asking for patience and cooperation as they sifted through evidence and leads, meeting residents and speaking openly about the pressures of guns and gangs on a small rural county. The portrait that emerged was of a tight-knit place grappling with a brutal crime in a familiar parking lot, a 25-year-old man gone, two others injured, and a community waiting for the name—or names—of the person or people who pulled the trigger.
