In the early hours of June 25, 2025, Jacob Riley Diehl, a 20-year-old male from Winston-Salem, was found in the parking lot along the 200 block of Dalewood Drive with a gunshot wound. Emergency responders tried to save him, but Jacob Riley Diehl, age 20, was pronounced dead at the scene around 2:10 a.m., turning a quiet stretch of asphalt into the center of a homicide investigation that police initially described as a targeted act.
His sudden death in Winston-Salem was later reflected in funeral notices that listed his passing on that date.
Detectives began piecing together what happened in those pre-dawn minutes. Within two days, on June 27, investigators arrested 19-year-old Mickey James Dewalt Jr. and charged him with felony murder and attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon. A magistrate denied bond, and authorities said he was held at the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention Center. At that point, the case narrative widened beyond a single shot in a parking lot to an alleged robbery attempt that ended with Jacob Riley Diehl, age 20, a male victim, left lifeless on the pavement.
Weeks later, the investigation reached a turning point with a second arrest. On July 11, police announced that a 16-year-old, identified as Jaisharr Jahon Semai Kirby, had been taken into custody and charged as an adult with felony murder and attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon. Authorities said the teen was being held in a juvenile detention center. With two suspects—Dewalt and Kirby—now facing felony murder and attempted-robbery charges, the portrait of that night grew clearer even as the legal process moved forward.
The aftermath rippled through the community Jacob Riley Diehl, age 20, called home. Friends and family gathered to grieve and to call for an end to the violence, rallying in Winston-Salem to honor him and to raise their voices against the gunfire that took him. Memorial pages and obituaries marked the day his life ended, while an online fundraiser described a family shattered by loss. Candles were lit in his memory as the city that morning became more than a dateline—it became the place where a young man’s story stopped, and a community’s demand for justice began.
