On February 15, 2024, 53-year-old Andrew Lee Peele Jr. was fatally shot in a residence on Buena Vista Drive within Wise’s Mobile Home Park in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Hertford County Sheriff Dexter Hayes, the first to arrive at the scene, found Peele unresponsive and without a pulse. The suspected shooter, a 15-year-old juvenile, had fled the scene immediately after the incident.
Preliminary investigations suggest that an altercation between Peele and the juvenile escalated, leading the latter to produce a firearm and shoot Peele. The juvenile suspect turned himself in to the Hertford County Sheriff's Office shortly before 7 p.m. on the same day. Following an interview, authorities filed a petition with Juvenile Services to formally charge the individual with first-degree murder. As of that evening, no clear motive for the shooting had been established.
Peele, a resident of Wise’s Mobile Home Park, was born on May 17, 1970, in Hertford County to Marion Futrell Peele and the late Andrew L. Peele Sr. He was self-employed as a laborer. He is survived by his mother, Marion Peele; two sisters, Irist Peele and Sharon Spencer; and his significant other, Lillian Lassiter. Funeral services were held on March 2, 2024, at Faith Tabernacle of Deliverance Church in Murfreesboro.
The tragic incident has left the Murfreesboro community in mourning, as residents grapple with the loss and the involvement of a young individual in such a serious crime. Authorities continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting to provide clarity and justice for the victim and his family.
