Drive-by shooting results in attempted murder indictment

By Lisa Majors-Duff

Weaver Alvin Brown Jr., 22, was originally charged Sept. 13 with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and discharging a gun into an occupied vehicle following an incident on N.C. 107 involving a Western Carolina University student, said Jackson County Sheriff's Detective Patrick McCoy.

The victim, Marques Tyron Parks, 20, told officers that a pickup truck pulled up beside his convertible BMW Z3 Roadster Sept. 12 while he was stopped at the traffic light at Wal-Mart.

"(Parks) said the driver of the truck revved its engine, but he didn't pay any attention," McCoy said.

The two vehicles proceeded south on N.C. 107 toward Cullowhee, Parks in the right lane, the truck in the left, the officer said.

"At about Burger King, the victim said he heard something," McCoy said. "When he looked around, something hit him in the face."

Parks told officers he sped up to get a look at the truck's tag number, McCoy said, which he managed to do at about the Catamount Gap rock cut.

"(Parks) said he was attempting to pass when he saw something black sticking out the passenger side of the truck," McCoy said. "He said it looked like the barrel of a gun.

As Parks ducked down in his vehicle, a shot rang out, grazing the back of his neck and hitting the vehicle's passenger-side mirror.

"If (Parks) had not of ducked, his brains would have been scrambled," McCoy said.

Parks continued on to the WCU campus, where he made a report to university police officers. From that report, Jackson County officers obtained warrants to search Brown's truck and Main Street Apartment residence, as well as Brown's father's residence. Though they found several spent shells, the gun that had fired the shells was not recovered, McCoy said.

In the meantime, officers say Brown continued south on N.C. 107 just over the state line with South Carolina into Oconee County. It was here that a motorist alerted law enforcement officers that a man was sleeping in a picnic area with a shot gun in his arms, McCoy said. South Carolina authorities confiscated the gun but did not charge Brown with a crime, the detective said.

When Brown returned to Jackson County, officers here arrested him Sept. 13 and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. Two days later they learned that the gun they believed had been used in the crime against Parks was in South Carolina.

Brown was transported to Raleigh "for safe keeping" following the Sept. 23 Grand Jury indictment, McCoy said. His first court appearance is set for Nov. 12.

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