2 Hickory Men Sentenced To Prison After Shooting At Local Pub Leaves 3 Dead
CATAWBA Co., N.C. — Two Hickory men were sentenced to prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to their involvement in a 2017 shooting at a local pub that left three people dead.
Police say Greydon Hansen and Dontray Cumberlander, both 28, could each spend 64 to 82 years in prison for their roles in a shooting at McCroskey’s Irish Pub and Grill in April of 2017 that took the lives of Quajuae Kennedy, Justin Aiken and Cody Bouphavong, all 21-years-old.
Authorities say a fourth victim, 20-year-old Cole Ervin, was also shot and injured during this attack in Hickory.
While in court, police say Hansen and Cumnerlander both plead guilty to three counts of 2nd degree murder, one count of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and one count of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle.
“No one believes that the result of this plea, or any plea or any trial will be equal to the losses that have been suffered here,” District Attorney Scott Reilly says. “I do believe that this plea will result in these two defendants spending the rest of their lives in prison. My hope is that this plea will give closure to the victims’ families so that they might be able to move forward in their healing process.”
Superior Court Judge from Lincoln County William T. Pomeroy sentenced both Hansen and Cumberlander for their involvement, and says they will both serve their time in the custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.
“I’m immensely shocked by the senselessness and lack of decency,” Pomeroy says of violent acts he sees in his role as a judge. “There is nothing I can say to satisfy anybody, nothing I can do to bring back a child. I do want each of the families to know that your statements will make me remember Justin, Cody and Quajuae.”
During his sentencing argument, Assistant District Attorney Lance Simon acknowledged that no sentence would change the outcome of that night and make things right.
“No matter how you examine this incident, there will never be a plausible explanation for these senseless killings,” Simon says. “There is nothing that anyone can do to return these young people
back to life. There is no one that can remove the sorrow and sadness of their families caused by these deaths. No type of punishment will bring them back to life or heal the pain the families continue to endure. But this term of years will guarantee that neither man will be released until they are in their late 80s – which should protect our community from further violent acts.”
Authorities say the fatal shootings occurred on April 7th, 2017.
Officers with the Hickory Police Department responded to the shooting at McCroskey’s early that morning and found Bouphavong lying in the parking lot with an apparent gunshot wound.
Witnesses at the scene told officers that the victims were shot while they were inside a Honda Accord, and the two men responsible fled in a Ford Fusion.
The driver of the Accord, Pablo Castillo-Hernandez, told officers that he was hanging with friends in the car when the Fusion circled the parking lot of the pub with a white man hanging out the passenger’s window holding an assault rifle.
Castillo-Hernandez says a Black man then approached his car from behind and stuck a gun in the back window and started firing.
Police say both witness accounts and a cell phone video of the shooting corroborate these events, that Cumberlander shot into the car as Hansen raised an assault rifle and also began firing at the vehicle.
Castillo-Hernandez says after the shooting he drove to a local hospital to seek treatment for his friends.
Officers with the Long View Police Department say they stopped a speeding vehicle a short time after the shooting that matched the description of the one that left McCroskey’s, and Hansen and Cumberlander were the only occupants inside the suspect vehicle.
Both Hansen and Cumberlander told officers that they had weapons in the car and had been at the pub.
A witness also identified the suspect car and the men as the same ones involved in the shooting earlier in the day.
While being interviewed by detectives, both men admitted to driving around the parking lot of the pub and firing their weapons at and inside the Accord where the victims sat.
A search of the suspect vehicle revealed the weapons that had been involved in the shooting were located inside, according to a news release.
Aiken died at Frye Regional Medical Center on April 7th, Bouphavong died at Carolinas Medical Center, and Kennedy died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center on April 8th.
Kim Craig led the investigation for Hickory Police Department, and Assistant District Attorneys Lance Sigmon and Nancy Lee prosecuted the matter for the State.
