Moore County Sheriff’s detectives arrested three suspects in connection with the murders, which occurred on Heron Road in the Carolina Lakes subdivision east of Carthage. The victims had been shot and stabbed and the home had been set on fire, officials said.
“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” Sheriff Lane Carter said Saturday in describing the grisly scene, “and I’m sure the detectives didn’t, either.”
He refused to confirm or deny reports that the case involved drugs, saying the investigation was still in its early stage.
The four killed were Eddie Lynn Ryals, 21, who lived at the mobile home on 382 Heron Road; Harvey Daryl Hobson, 20, who lived across the street from Ryals; Joseph Allen Harden, 19, of Morrison Bridge Road in Vass; and Carl Garrison Justice Jr., 18, Harden’s roommate.
Two were in the kitchen and two in the living room, though one of them was later pulled onto the front porch by a family member
Officers arrested Mario Lynn Phillips, 35, who lived with his mother across the street from the mobile home, and two others suspects: Renee Yvette McLaughlin, 19, of Laurie Road, Spring Lake, and Sean Maurice Ray, 24, of Heavenwood Road, Carthage.
Suspect Ray lived on the same street as Justice, one of the victims. Carter said he imagined the two knew each other but didn’t know for sure.
“We’ve had no time for a background check,” he said.
Investigators hope a fifth attack victim, 15-year-old Amanda Cook, who is hospitalized in critical condition, will be able to tell them more about what happened. She narrowly escaped her attackers after they stabbed her multiple times, shot her twice and slit her throat.
Cook fled from the mobile home, but the attackers caught her before she could get away. They wrapped her in a tarp and put her in the back of a truck, reportedly intent on dumping her body in a pond or lake. But the truck got stuck in a sandy ditch after going several hundred feet and the suspects ran away, leaving Cook behind.
Cook crawled out of the truck bed and collapsed in the street, where firefighters responding to a call about the trailer fire found her. Blood could later be seen soaked into the sand where she fell. Before emergency workers took her to the hospital, Cook identified Phillips as one of the attackers, according to Carter.
Once they arrived at the mobile home, firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, which did not greatly damage the crime scene. Carter said this will help his officers in their investigations.
Ricky Poindexter, who lives down Heron Road, was returning from a hunting trip when he saw smoke rising in the distance. He kept on driving and stopped at the burning mobile home.
“It was blazing,” he said later. “I ran up to the house. Somebody had drug Joe [Harden] out. There was a lady up on the porch saying, “People are still in here!”
Poindexter said he went inside, found the body of his niece’s boyfriend, “C.J.” (Justice) on a couch, and dragged him outside.
“Two were still inside — one black guy and one white guy,” he said. “They’d been shot and cut.”
Poindexter was still stunned at 4 p.m. Friday. He was wearing his camouflage hunting overalls, which reeked of smoke.
“To see your friends cut up, shot up and stuff — helpless,” he said. “Two boys that you know. They would come over and eat.”
Neighbors told investigators that they saw three people run out of the burning mobile home just after 2 p.m. Some of the neighbors tried to rescue the people remaining inside. They kicked open the locked front door.
Neighbors Gather
Friday afternoon and evening, shocked neighbors and families grouped together in the road, watching investigators and firefighters secure the scene. A blue tarp hung over the front porch, blocking the doorway. Two bodies still lay under white sheets on the front porch and in the yard.
The mobile homes’ windows were broken, their panes charred and warped. The fire damage was mostly confined to the right side of the mobile home.
Not all of the victims had been identified at that point. Carter said family members were not asked to identify the bodies themselves. Friends and neighbors performed that task. Clothing and tattoo descriptions also helped in making the identifications.
By 6 p.m., all the bodies had been identified. More family members and friends arrived at the scene, stopping their cars in the middle of the road. One woman ran toward the mobile home in hysterics, but an SBI agent stopped her when she reached the yellow police tape.
In a manhunt late Friday, authorities combed the surrounding woods looking for Phillips and the other two suspects. K9 dogs tracked Phillips’ scent to an empty mobile home nearby. Investigators knocked on doors and questioned neighbors.
Officers set up roadblocks and checked the back seats and trunks of cars leaving the neighborhood to make sure no one was smuggling the suspects.
Hiding Across Street
As it turned out, Phillips and the two other suspects had been hiding in the home of Phillips’ mother across the street from the murder scene.
“He [Phillips] was watching the whole time,” Carter said. “His truck got stuck, he had no transportation.”
Phillips’ mother, who was not inside the house with Phillips, called Cameron Police Chief Gary McDonald and said she would try to get her son to surrender.
Reports that there had been a hostage situation were false, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Phillips’ mother led McDonald to her house, Carter said. At about 6:30, After negotiating through the locked front door, Phillips opened the door for the police chief but still refused to surrender. Members of the county’s special tactics team pushed their way inside.
All of the suspects were arrested on charges of four counts of first-degree murder, one count of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and one count of first-degree arson. All are being held without bond at the Moore County Jail in Carthage.
Investigators were still at the scene Saturday morning and will continue to work throughout the weekend, according to Carter.
