A Columbus County Sheriff’s Office detective had interviewed the 15-year-old girl who was shot and killed in Roanoke Rapids on June 22, according to a recently filed search warrant.

The affidavit reveals that the teenager, Mariah Thompson, was the niece of a man killed in Columbus County just 11 days before Thompson and 20-year-old Patrick Shane Faircloth, both of Whiteville, were fatally shot in Roanoke Rapids.

The Columbus County search warrant was filed to obtain DNA samples from 18-year-old Eric Lamont Martin Jr., who faces murder charges in the deaths of Thompson and Faircloth, as well as the June 11 murder of Raphael Gowans in Whiteville. No evidence was seized, according to the returned search warrant.

According to the affidavit, the detective first interviewed Gowans's sister at the scene of the Columbus County shooting. She stated that Martin and Gowans were in the yard talking, laughing, and playing when she came down the steps and saw Martin shoot her brother.

“She stated she didn't understand because they were picking and playing and Eric asked him did he want to smoke a blunt,” the detective wrote in the affidavit. “She stated Raphael told him no, that he didn't smoke weed and that's when he pulled out the gun.”

According to the sister's statement, Martin then asked Raphael, “You want to feel it?” 

She told the detective that Rapheal kept backing up and told Martin, “Na man, leave me alone man,” before Martin shot him.

The sister told the detective that Martin was her cousin and had visited her home three or four times. 

She then suggested the detective speak to her 15-year-old daughter, Mariah.

“Mariah stated several times that she heard the police call out Martin’s name and that she wasn't going to say anything because she was not going to be on anybody's paperwork,” the affidavit states.

When the detective asked the teenager what happened that evening, she replied, “We were outside talking and he shot him.”

Thompson described Martin, who also goes by the street name Thirty, as being “f***ed up in the head” and subsequently identified him through his Facebook profile photo.

The Columbus County search warrant is the second one to be filed in the multi-jurisdictional investigation.

A separate search warrant, filed by the Wake County Sheriff’s Office and based on an investigation by the Roanoke Rapids Police Department, reveals that Martin fled to Raleigh after the double homicide in Roanoke Rapids. Investigators believe he returned to his mother’s home on Anthony Drive, where he was ultimately apprehended by deputies as he walked out the front door.

According to the Wake County affidavit, Roanoke Rapids police officers recovered both .380-caliber and .223-caliber AR-style shell casings at the Roanoke Rapids crime scene. Those ballistics provided detectives with the probable cause needed to search the Raleigh residence for related weapons, ammunition, and evidence.

In addition to Martin, Isaiah Napoleon Cooper has been charged as an accessory after the fact in both the Columbus County and Roanoke Rapids homicides. Cooper is currently being held under a $400,000 secured bond in Columbus County and is tentatively scheduled to make his first appearance in Halifax County District Court on July 23.