Montague Baldwin, a 45-year-old man, died after being shot in Hoke County, North Carolina, on May 24, 2025. Deputies were dispatched around 1:30 p.m. to the 100 block of Payton Place, where they found him lying in the roadway with gunshot wounds; EMS pronounced him dead at the scene. His next of kin was notified, and authorities opened a homicide investigation.
Investigators soon identified a suspect and made an arrest. The Hoke County Sheriff's Office charged 32-year-old Laquan Harris of Lumber Bridge with first-degree murder; he was booked into the Hoke County Detention Center and held without bond while the case remained under investigation. Local reporting in the days that followed echoed those details, noting the location, Baldwin's age, and the arrest of Harris in connection with the shooting.
Public memorial pages and obituaries published after his death confirmed Baldwin's name and date of death and helped fix the timeline of the case in the public record. Community remembrances listed him as 45 and marked May 24, 2025, as the day he was lost to gun violence, aligning with law enforcement announcements.
