John Jefferson
Top inset: Alex Shirley (Dignity Memorial). Middle inset: Sophie Hagy (WRAL). Bottom inset: Nathan Christopher Jackson (Johnston County Jail). Background: The location near where Shirley was fatally shot and Hagy was left paralyzed from the waist down (WNCN).
A North Carolina gang member who was 16 years old when he fired a barrage of bullets into a car, killing one and paralyzing the victim’s friend, has learned his fate.
Nathan Christopher Jackson, 18, was sentenced to life in prison with parole possible after 40 years in the 2022 shooting that killed Alex Shirley, 21, and paralyzed his friend, Sophie Hagy. Before being sentenced, Jackson was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and discharging a firearm into a vehicle, inflicting serious injury.
Shirley’s mother, Kristi Lee, described her mixed emotions to the outcome to local NBC affiliate WRAL.
“I felt a lot of relief,” Lee said. “It’s not closure. You don’t get closure when you have to bury your child and see the gruesome things that we saw.”
“It has actually decimated my world,” she added. “I still say goodnight to an empty bedroom. I text his cellphone. The dogs still go into his room looking for him every day.”
Alex Shirley’s father, Ron Shirley, the host of the reality TV show “Lizard Lick Towing,” told WRAL what he learned after the outcome of his son’s murder case.
“If I leave this courthouse and this trial with anything else, I want people to know that you have to learn to forgive no matter what, and you have to learn to love no matter how hard,” he said.
The bloodshed happened on Feb. 17, 2022. Jackson and a co-defendant, both identified as members of the Nine Trey Bloods gang, walked up to a car in Garner, just south of Raleigh, North Carolina, and unleashed a hail of 20 bullets into the vehicle that Shirley and Hagy were in. Shirley died at the scene. Hagy was left paralyzed from the waist down. A third person in the vehicle suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Shirley and Hagy were shot while attending a memorial service to support the loss of a peer who was killed in a car crash, her GoFundMe page said.
WRAL reported that in addition to Jackson, three others were charged in the shooting. Others could face charges in the open investigation, Johnston County Senior Assistant District Attorney Jason Waller told Law&Crime.
Hagy was described on her GoFundMe page as beautiful and kind, with her entire life ahead of her.
“Sophie is now paralyzed following a shooting that took place while she was attending a memorial service,” the page said. “As she innocently attended the balloon release to support the loss of another peer who had been killed tragically in a car accident, Sophie was shot twice in her back.”
“As expected, Sophie is in shock, overwhelmed by emotion, and is having a difficult time processing what has happened,” the site added.
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