Hargrove pleads guilty to first-degree murder
Sep. 14—HENDERSON — With jury selection for his trial otherwise set to resume, Marcus Tyrell Hargrove on Tuesday pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2017 shooting of 23-year-old Shaekeya Danielle Gay.
Hargrove accepted a deal that on Monday will see him sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Yes, maam," he said when Superior Court Judge Cindy Sturges asked him in open court if he agreed to that.
The plea agreement forestalled a possible death penalty at the conclusion of a jury trial, but authorities said both they and Gay's family are satisfied with the outcome.
"It is our position this was always a first-degree murder, and that was the only resolution that the state of North Carolina was willing to accept," District Attorney Mike Waters said, adding that prosecutors in that pursuit "had the family's support."
A plea deal had been on the table for a while, but until Monday evening, Hargrove and his lawyers had held out for the possibility of finding that the shooting of Gay on a bench outside the Dabney Drive Food Lion was a second-degree murder, Waters said.
By definition, first-degree murder in North Carolina involves "willful, deliberate and premeditated killing," and is punishable only by death or life in prison without parole.
A conviction for second-degree murder can bring with it what officials call a "term of years," and the possibility of someday being released.
"As a practical reality, if we can agree it's a first-degree murder, under almost all circumstances then we would accept a non-capital disposition, even when we have declared a case or found initial reason to try the case capital," Waters said.
Without that agreement, prosecutors would have "put all the issues to the jury," he said.
Waters said he didn't know whether the imminent resumption of jury selection, following a hiatus caused by questions about Hargrove's mental capacity to stand trial, prompted the accused to accept the offer.
Hargrove's attorney, Jonathan Broun, declined to comment on Tuesday, indicating that he preferred to wait until after Monday's sentencing hearing to answer media questions.
Gay's family likewise sent word through Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow that it would wait until after the Monday hearing to comment.
After accepting the plea, Sturges had the jurors the two sides had already empaneled come into the courtroom so she could thank them for serving.
She speculated that it "was us going through the process of jury selection" that helped prompt Hargrove's decision.
"A defendant will look out and see all the jury members, it becomes very real, and they take a plea," she said before dismissing the selected jurors. "Just by showing up, you made a difference."
Barrow said he was "super-ecstatic" about both the way prosecutors worked with his department to bring the case to a close, and that Gay's family now has some closure.
"The case was real personal to all of us, because we knew her through various ways, just shopping at Food Lion or some of our officers knew her personally," Barrow said of Gay, who had worked at the grocery.
"We put our heart and soul into the case. I think we presented a great case to the DA's office. For him to plead guilty, straight, to first-degree murder, I'm satisfied with it."
The plea and upcoming sentencing brings to a close a prosecution that had been delayed in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the postponement of numerous trials across the state in 2020 and 2021.
Even without the pandemic, the replacement of Hargrove's defense team in the spring of 2020 would have meant a delay in the proceedings.
Waters said his office's "aspirational goal [is] to try to resolve a homicide in about 24 months," and had been ready to try the Hargrove case for a while, including last summer when the state Supreme Court ordered another postponement to resolve a scheduling conflict otherwise facing Hargrove's lawyers.
Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.
Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.
