CastlesBurning
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https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article276877458.html
Justin Ervin was 20 years old and madly in love.
He and his girlfriend Shasta Rich had just finished up a Saturday night of laughing and celebrating at Hooters for her little brother Christopher’s 15th birthday.
It was late by the time they said goodbye to her family and hopped in her silver still-new Ford Mustang to drive home.
Just before 1 a.m., Dec. 10, 2005, Ervin stopped at Sam’s Mart gas station in northwest Charlotte to buy a pack of cigarettes. He ran in while 17-year-old Rich waited in the car.
Outside, she saw a friend and said hello. When she saw his eyes go wide, she whipped her head around, she’d later tell her family.
Something was wrong.
Three men ran to the car. Rich tried, frantically, to roll up the window. She wasn’t fast enough.
“You are going to do exactly what I say,” one of them told her, pointing a pistol at her through the window opening.
From inside, the gas station clerk saw what was happening and told Ervin, who ran out toward his girlfriend.
“What are y’all doing,” he yelled. “Get away from her!”
He didn’t know they had a gun.
The three men attempted to drag her out of the front seat. She told a Charlotte Observer reporter at the time that the men were trying to pull down her pants and underwear.
Ervin began to fight.
Rich leaped out of the car and escaped as the first shot rang out.
She recalled later that she was running away when one of the men yelled: “Shoot the
she’s going to the police!”
Ervin was on the ground, already wounded.
Rich would tell police and her family she looked back, toward her boyfriend and the car. Although she would never get a chance to testify in court, what happened next, her brother says, tortured her for years.
The man holding the gun made eye contact with her, then looked at Ervin and shot at him a second time.
The suspects drove off in her car, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police report. Rich ran inside the store and pleaded with a cashier to call 911, her brother and grandmother recently told the Observer.
She told her family the cashier refused to call police, out of fear of retaliation. So Rich climbed over the counter and called them herself.
On the pavement outside the store, Rich told her brother, someone had rolled Ervin’s body over and stolen the pack of cigarettes.
Justin Ervin was 20 years old and madly in love.
He and his girlfriend Shasta Rich had just finished up a Saturday night of laughing and celebrating at Hooters for her little brother Christopher’s 15th birthday.
It was late by the time they said goodbye to her family and hopped in her silver still-new Ford Mustang to drive home.
Just before 1 a.m., Dec. 10, 2005, Ervin stopped at Sam’s Mart gas station in northwest Charlotte to buy a pack of cigarettes. He ran in while 17-year-old Rich waited in the car.
Outside, she saw a friend and said hello. When she saw his eyes go wide, she whipped her head around, she’d later tell her family.
Something was wrong.
Three men ran to the car. Rich tried, frantically, to roll up the window. She wasn’t fast enough.
“You are going to do exactly what I say,” one of them told her, pointing a pistol at her through the window opening.
From inside, the gas station clerk saw what was happening and told Ervin, who ran out toward his girlfriend.
“What are y’all doing,” he yelled. “Get away from her!”
He didn’t know they had a gun.
The three men attempted to drag her out of the front seat. She told a Charlotte Observer reporter at the time that the men were trying to pull down her pants and underwear.
Ervin began to fight.
Rich leaped out of the car and escaped as the first shot rang out.
She recalled later that she was running away when one of the men yelled: “Shoot the
she’s going to the police!”Ervin was on the ground, already wounded.
Rich would tell police and her family she looked back, toward her boyfriend and the car. Although she would never get a chance to testify in court, what happened next, her brother says, tortured her for years.
The man holding the gun made eye contact with her, then looked at Ervin and shot at him a second time.
The suspects drove off in her car, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police report. Rich ran inside the store and pleaded with a cashier to call 911, her brother and grandmother recently told the Observer.
She told her family the cashier refused to call police, out of fear of retaliation. So Rich climbed over the counter and called them herself.
On the pavement outside the store, Rich told her brother, someone had rolled Ervin’s body over and stolen the pack of cigarettes.
