Battleboro Man, 34, Caught on I-87 With Stolen Gun After Shooting at Estranged Wife

A Battleboro man is facing attempted murder charges after authorities say he fired a handgun into his estranged wife's SUV while she was driving, then evaded capture for ten days before deputies intercepted him on a major interstate carrying a stolen 9mm handgun. Robert Earl Williams III, 34, was taken into custody without incident on Wednesday, August 26, following a vehicle stop on Interstate 87 east of Highway 540 in Wake County.

The case began on August 16, when the Nash County Sheriff's Office responded to a disturbance and shots-fired report at 5845 N.C. 48 Highway in Battleboro, according to the Wake County Sheriff's Office. Investigators say Williams shot at Marhlycia Erinette Williams, his estranged spouse, while she was driving, and that bullets struck her vehicle. She was not injured in the shooting, according to the sheriff's office. Court records reviewed by Fighting Crime News and Who's Wanted identify the vehicle as a white Chevrolet SUV and place the shooting on the Rocky Mount portion of N.C. Highway 48.

Following the shooting, the Nash County Sheriff's Office obtained warrants charging Williams with attempted murder and with discharging a firearm into a dwelling or moving vehicle. He was placed in the Nash County Detention Center once he was transported there and is being held on no bond. Williams, who resides at 6C Drew Hills Court in Battleboro, was scheduled for his first court appearance on Thursday.

Interstate Stop Ends in Additional Weapons Charges

Ten days after the Battleboro shooting, the Wake County Sheriff's Office stopped Williams's vehicle on I-87 near Highway 540, a corridor that links Raleigh to routes heading into Nash County within roughly a 45-minute drive, according to the Construction Equipment Guide. A search of the vehicle turned up a stolen 9mm handgun, prompting Wake County deputies to charge Williams with possession of a stolen firearm and carrying a concealed weapon.

A passenger in the vehicle, Za'nya Key'ara Morris-Carter, was also charged with possession of a stolen handgun and carrying a concealed weapon. It remains unclear how Morris-Carter is connected to Williams or to the earlier shooting; court filings had not addressed that relationship as of Thursday.

Felony Classifications Carry Mandatory Prison Time

Under North Carolina General Statutes § 14-17 and § 14-2.5, attempted first-degree murder is classified as a Class B2 felony, which carries a mandatory active prison sentence ranging from 125 to 157 months for a defendant with no prior record, according to the Patrick Roberts Law Blog. Separately, willfully discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle that is in operation constitutes a Class D felony under North Carolina General Statute § 14-34.1(b), a higher statutory class than shooting into unoccupied property, per the North Carolina General Assembly.

North Carolina appellate courts have also established that discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle can serve as an underlying predicate felony for first-degree felony murder if a victim later dies from bullet impacts, according to the UNC School of Government. That legal backdrop underscores how severe the exposure could become for Williams even though Marhlycia Erinette Williams was not hurt in the shooting.

Concurrent Case Highlights Regional Gun Violence

The Battleboro shooting arrives amid a string of violent gun cases moving through Nash County courts. On the same day Williams was scheduled for his first court appearance, Nash County authorities processed a separate attempted first-degree murder charge against a 27-year-old Rocky Mount man accused of firing a handgun into an occupied property in the city's Happy Hill neighborhood shooting case.

Nash County's sheriff's office has a history of responding to intimate-partner violence in the Battleboro area, including a fatal domestic attack there in December 2020 in which a husband attacked his wife, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Battleboro sits across the Nash and Edgecombe county line, an area where deputies from multiple jurisdictions regularly coordinate on violent crime response.

Nash and Wake county law enforcement agencies have increasingly worked joint operations along interstate corridors to intercept stolen firearms moving across county lines, a trend Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone has emphasized in prior cases involving regional interdiction efforts. Those partnerships often extend to federal programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods and the Take Back North Carolina Initiative, which the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina has used to target armed suspects and recover stolen weapons.