Man gets prison time for shooting victim with his own gun, then posting video

An Efland man will serve up to nine years in prison after a jury found him guilty Friday of voluntary manslaughter in a fatal 2021 shooting in a Hillsborough shopping center.

Doyle Edwards, 25, was also found guilty of simple assault, breaking or entering into a motor vehicle, and larceny of a firearm in connection with the shooting. Superior Court Judge James Ammons Jr. sentenced him to 80 to 108 months in prison — six and a half to nine years — plus 30 months of supervised probation.

Edwards’ attorney, former Orange County Chief Superior Court Judge Carl Fox, hugged the young man following the verdict.

The jury could have found Edwards guilty of first- or second-degree murder.

What happened at the smoke shop?

Hillsborough police said 19-year-old JyQuel McRae, who was from Mebane, was shot around 5:30 p.m. on April 1, 2021, outside the Hillsborough Discount Tobacco & Vape shop at the Hampton Pointe shopping center.

The shooting was caught on surveillance video and shown to the jury during the trial.

Edwards and McRae went to the store that day separately to make purchases and got into an argument when they ran into each other, Fox and District Attorney Jeff Nieman said.

McRae had been wanting to fight another man, Chase Torain, who was at the store with Edwards, McRae’s mother Stacy Jackson told the court before sentencing. McRae pulled the gun out during the fight but returned it to his car after seeing the other men were unarmed, she said.

Prior to that day, Jackson said, Torain had “jumped my son multiple times.”

Edwards left the fight and got the gun from McRae’s car, then shot him with it, according to the video and court testimony. He went into the store briefly, then returned to make a cell phone video of McRae as he lay dying on the ground, Neiman said.

Edwards taunted McRae, saying “don’t play with me,” Nieman said, and “somebody needs to come get your boy.” Edwards then posted the video to the Snapchat social media app, Nieman said.

McRae died later that day at Duke University Hospital.

Torain, of Cedar Grove, has already pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for being involved in the fight, Nieman said.

Was the shooting self defense?

Shooting McRae was an act of self defense by Edwards, Fox said, because McRae had threatened him and Torain with the gun, and he then charged Edwards after he retrieved the gun from McRae’s car.

“It’s probably different from what a normal self-defense case is, because the victim had threatened to kill them when they were fighting with him, so (Edwards) believed if he let him go and get the gun, he was going to shoot them both,” Fox said.

He noted that Edwards did not have a criminal record, was regarded by his family as a person of good character, and that he stayed at the scene after the shooting, giving the gun to police and cooperating with the investigation.

Nieman countered that Edwards’s actions that evening, including putting other people in the crowded commercial area on a weekday evening at risk and committing a crime that was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, deserved a stiffer punishment.

The jury and Superior Court Judge James Ammons Jr. agreed.

While Edwards “acted under strong provocation,” Ammons said, he also “callously made a video recording of the victim JyQuel McRae while he was suffering a gunshot wound … and the defendant disseminated it to others on social media.”

Fox argued that the surveillance video did not show anyone in danger at the shopping center and that the recording Edwards made of McRae was part of the act of shooting him and should not be considered separately.

Another story of guns and bad choices

The “sad part” of what happened is that it reflects a lot of the gun violence happening between young African-American males, Fox said in his remarks. There is not enough outrage about that, he said.

“A young man like (Edwards), if he runs in his community, he’s a punk. They can take advantage of him. They feel like they can beat on him and do what they want to in this situation,” Fox said.

“Unlike a lot of places where kids get into fights and they turn and go home, like it was when I was a kid, they turn and If they’re not satisfied with the outcome, they go get a gun and finish it off,” he said. “It’s not my reality, but it’s his reality.”

Edwards declined to speak to the court or the victim’s family before sentencing.

After apologizing to both families for their current circumstances, Ammons chided Edwards for his decision, saying he “had a choice on that day and made the wrong one.” Make better choices after prison in “how to live the rest of your life,” Ammons said.

“When given an opportunity by this court to apologize to these people or to apologize to society or say anything at all, you declined,” Ammons said. “The video shows a very angry person. You did not become that person that day. … I hope you won’t be a worse person when you get out of prison, or you’ll be going back for something.”