Police say a second man was wounded and the 8-month-old child survived after gunfire struck a vehicle outside a home on Latham Avenue.
PLYMOUTH, N.C. — A North Carolina man was shot to death while holding his 8-month-old child in a vehicle outside his Plymouth home, police said, and family members later said he used his body to shield the baby as gunfire tore into the car.
Authorities identified the dead man as Devonelle Brimage, 36. The shooting has drawn attention well beyond this eastern North Carolina town because investigators say the infant and another adult survived the same attack, and because relatives and a memorial fundraiser describe Brimage as the father of 11 children. Plymouth police have called the case a homicide investigation and said they are working with the State Bureau of Investigation and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. More than a week after the gunfire, no suspect or motive had been publicly announced, leaving Brimage’s family pleading for answers and a shaken town waiting to see whether the case will bring an arrest.
Police said the shooting happened around 1:30 a.m. April 2 on Latham Avenue. Officers responding to reports of gunfire found two men in a vehicle that had been struck by bullets, along with an infant. Brimage was pronounced dead at the scene. Another man in the car, 38-year-old Avione Webb, had been shot while sitting in the rear seat, police said. The child was found alive and was later treated at a hospital. Chief Louis Banks said Brimage was the baby’s father, and family members later said he had been holding the child when he was killed. In the first hours after the shooting, investigators disclosed only the basic outline: a parked vehicle outside a home, two adults hit by gunfire and a baby caught in the middle. A resident later told local television station WCTI that the shooting sounded “like we were in a war zone,” a description that captured the suddenness of the violence in a small town where neighbors said they were jolted awake by shots and then the rush of police cars.
As officers worked the scene, the case quickly widened from an overnight shooting call to a multiagency homicide investigation. Plymouth police said Brimage lived at the house where the vehicle was parked. Webb was taken first to Washington Regional Medical Center and later transferred to ECU Health Medical Center for additional treatment. Police said the infant also was taken to Washington Regional, treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released. That left investigators with three central questions that still had not been publicly answered days later: who opened fire, why the vehicle was targeted and whether the shooter knew the people inside. Authorities did not say how many shots were fired, whether the vehicle had been moving or parked for long, or whether detectives had recovered a weapon tied to the attack. They also did not describe any suspect vehicle, name any person of interest or say whether security video, shell casings or witness statements had begun to narrow the case. By the time national attention reached Plymouth, the public record still showed a killing under investigation, one wounded survivor and an infant who had survived a burst of gunfire that easily could have been deadlier.
The story took on added emotional force as Brimage’s relatives began describing the man behind the police bulletins. A family fundraiser said he was the father of 11 children and had 10 surviving siblings. WITN later interviewed his fiancée, Michelle Jackson, and his sister, Franlena Brimage, both of whom described him as devoted to his children and generous with relatives and neighbors. Jackson said fatherhood defined him, adding that “not a day that went by” that he did not see the baby he was protecting when he was shot. His sister told the station he would “give you the shirt off his back” for someone who needed help. Those accounts do not answer the questions detectives are still trying to solve, but they do explain why the case has resonated so strongly in Plymouth and far beyond it. The official account is only a few lines long. The family’s version fills in the life that existed before the sirens, the crime-scene tape and the public appeals for information.
The shooting also landed in a town that local residents say has been unsettled by recent violence. WCTI reported that some people in Plymouth were already alarmed by another recent fatal case involving a student, and neighbors told the station they feared more bloodshed as warmer months approached. In that setting, the image of a father dying while trying to cover an infant turned this case from another homicide statistic into something that many people saw as a test of whether investigators could quickly restore some sense of order. Even so, officials have been careful about what they will say publicly. Police have not laid out a theory of the case, and they have not indicated whether they believe the shooting grew from a personal dispute, a feud, mistaken identity or some other confrontation. That restraint leaves important facts unknown, including whether Brimage or Webb had received threats beforehand and whether the infant was physically struck by gunfire or hurt by shattered glass and debris. For now, the clearest confirmed facts remain narrow and severe: gunfire outside a home, one man dead, another recovering and a baby alive.
Because no arrest had been announced by Sunday, the case remained in its earliest public stage. Police said from the start that the SBI and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office were assisting, a sign that investigators were treating the homicide as a case likely to require outside forensic help, follow-up interviews and broader regional coordination. No charges had been filed in public, no suspect had been named and no court schedule had emerged. That means the next official turn is likely to come not from a hearing, but from police: the naming of a suspect, an arrest warrant, a released motive or a fuller timeline of who was in and around the vehicle before the shots were fired. Until then, the procedural record is limited to what authorities have confirmed already, including Brimage’s death at the scene, Webb’s hospitalization, the infant’s release and the continuing request for information from anyone who might know what happened on Latham Avenue before dawn on April 2.
For Brimage’s relatives, the case now moves on two tracks at once. One is the police investigation, measured in evidence collection, interviews and public silence. The other is the family’s effort to bury him, care for his children and tell people who he was beyond the headline. The fundraiser created in the days after the shooting sought help with funeral and burial expenses and support for the children he left behind. WITN’s later interviews showed a family still speaking in the present tense about a man whose routines were deeply tied to work, fatherhood and helping others. That grief has sharpened rather than softened the family’s demand for accountability. Their public comments have not pointed to any suspect, but they have made clear that the passage of days without an arrest has been hard to bear. In a case where the surviving baby has become the most haunting detail, Brimage’s relatives keep returning to the same point: they believe his final act was protective, and they do not want that act to be the only thing the public remembers about him.
As of Sunday, Brimage’s killing remained unsolved in public view, the infant had been treated and released, and Webb’s longer-term condition had not been publicly detailed. The next development is expected to come when investigators identify a suspect, announce an arrest or disclose what they believe set off the shooting.