A 22-year-old Lumberton man is being held without bond after deputies say he opened fire into an occupied vehicle outside Lumberton, killing 24-year-old Kianna T. Jones of Rowland and targeting a second person who survived unharmed. Cedrione K. McDowell now faces first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and a charge of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle in connection with the shooting.
According to WPDE, Robeson County deputies responded to the 100 block of Indian Heritage Road outside Lumberton at approximately 9:50 p.m. last Thursday night after receiving a report of a person who had been shot. When they arrived, deputies found Jones dead inside a car. Sheriff's officials say the shooting targeted Martev Gunter, of St. Paul's, who was not injured.
McDowell was arrested Saturday, two days after the shooting, with help from the U.S. Marshals Carolinas Fugitive Task Force, the station's report notes. That federal-state partnership is an interagency team that routinely works alongside the Robeson County Sheriff's Office to track down high-risk violent crime suspects across county and state lines, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
What Led to the Shooting Remains Unclear
The relationship or dispute, if any, between McDowell and the two people in the car has not been made public, and the same account does not indicate whether a weapon was recovered at the scene. McDowell's first court appearance in Robeson County District Court has also not been announced. The Sheriff's Office's homicide and criminal investigation divisions continue investigating and are asking anyone with information to call 910-671-3100.
McDowell is being held at the Robeson County Detention Center without bond. Under North Carolina criminal procedure, defendants charged with first-degree murder are held without bond at the outset, with pre-trial release decisions reserved exclusively for Superior Court judges, per the Border Belt Independent.
A Pattern of Violence in Robeson County
The killing lands in a county that has struggled for years with some of North Carolina's highest violent crime numbers. State Bureau of Investigation data cited by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety shows Robeson County logged 1,008 violent crimes in 2023, a rate of 872 per 100,000 residents — nearly triple the statewide average of 312. Lumberton itself recorded the highest municipal violent crime rate in the state that year, at 2,018 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data compiled by SafeHome.org.
Local homicide totals had actually fallen from a record high in recent years. The Border Belt Independent reported that Robeson County agencies investigated 41 homicides in 2024, down from 51 in 2023, with the Sheriff's Office alone handling 29 cases in 2024 compared to 41 the year before. Statewide public health data shows firearms were involved in 85 percent of Robeson County homicides between 2013 and 2022, with residents aged 19 to 24 — Jones's age bracket — among those facing the highest rates of violent death.
State violent death reporting data also indicates that nearly half of homicides in the county, 46 percent, stem from an argument or interpersonal conflict, a pattern local law enforcement has repeatedly linked to vehicle-related shootings. Whether that dynamic played a role in Jones's death has not been addressed by investigators.
Sheriff's Office's Recent Casework
The arrest comes weeks after the Robeson County Sheriff's Office, working with federal investigators, made arrests in the long-unsolved 2015 killing of a Fairmont teenager, a case Hoodline covered in June. That case, like this one, involved multi-agency coordination to bring charges in a violent death.
If convicted of first-degree murder, McDowell faces the state's harshest statutory penalties. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 14-17(a), first-degree murder is a Class A felony carrying a mandatory sentence of either life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty, with no eligibility for probation. The separate charge of discharging a firearm into an occupied, operating vehicle is a Class E felony under North Carolina General Statutes § 14-34.1, which mandates active prison time under the state's structured sentencing guidelines.
