Feds give Granville shooter 10 years on top of state time
Jan. 18—WILMINGTON — A 2021 double shooting has a Granville County man serving state and federal prison sentences at the same time, thanks to a judge's decision earlier this month.
William Brian Coghill, 40, pleaded guilty in state court last September of two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He got 15 to 19 years for those crimes. On Friday, a federal judge said he should also serve 10 years for a charge of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon.
He will serve that concurrently with his state sentence, and do his time in a North Carolina prison, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers said.
The two-pronged prosecution of Coghill began after Granville County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to an Aug. 13, 2021, 911 call about a shooting in the Fredrick Road area of the county, which is north of Oxford off N.C. 96.
Deputies found one man with a gunshot wound to his right arm, and as they looked for blood trails, heard and located a second man who was groaning in pain from bullet wounds to his side and abdomen.
The second man came close to dying, but survived after spending weeks in the hospital and enduring several surgeries, U.S. Attorney Mike Easley Jr.'s office said via a news release.
A pair of spent 9mm shell casing told part of the tale, and Coghill's mother supplied more details, telling deputies her son had picked up a shotgun and a pistol and pointed them at the two men as they sat on his porch.
She watched him shoot both men, though both begged him not to. He then "went into the house, turned out the lights, and [forbade] his mother from calling for help," prosecutors said.
Coghill pleaded guilty in state court on Sept. 7, 2022, according to N.C. Department of Adult Correction records. Federal court records show the plea to the weapons-possession charges followed on Sept. 21, 2021.
His state-court conviction also included two counts of supplying contraband to prisoners, the Department of Adult Correction's database said. He has been serving his time in the Granville Correctional Institution, which is in Butner.
Coghill's prior record included a 2010 felony conviction on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. He served a little over two years and eight months in prison for that crime. He was also convicted that year of possessing Schedule II drugs, also a felony.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked with the Granville sheriff's office on the investigation of the 2021 shooting, federal prosecutors said.
Upon release, Coghill will be on federal probation for three years. Myers also ordered him to undergo "intensive substance abuse treatment" and get mental health assessment and treatment along with "vocational and educational opportunities."
Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.
