Woman shot in her car near TC
By DEUCE NIVEN
tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com
Gunfire into a car at an intersection just outside of Tabor City critically injured a Whiteville woman Wednesday night, Maj. Russell Conway of the Tabor City Police Department said Thursday.
Tabitha Reaves, 21, of Villa Drive, Whiteville, was shot while her BMW was stopped at the stop sign at NC 904 and Complex Street, at the Tabor City Athletic Complex, just before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Conway said.
A witness was injured when a stray bullet struck the pick-up truck he was driving and shattered glass cut an ear lobe, Conway said. That witness followed a suspect to Woodrow Street in Tabor City, Conway said.
A man who was with Reaves in the BMW apparently moved her to the passenger seat and drove her to McLeod Loris hospital, attracting the attention of a Loris Police Department officer who attempted to pull the car over for speeding, finding the critically injured woman in the passenger seat at the Emergency Department entrance.
“We were called by a Loris Police Department detective,” Conway said.
Reaves was later transferred by ambulance to the trauma unit at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, Conway said.
Neither the man who drove Reaves to the hospital, nor an 18-month old child in the back seat believed to be Reaves’, were injured, Conway said. Reaves was not able to talk to investigators due to her injuries.
Reaves’ car was a short distance outside of the town limits when she was shot, and the investigation was turned over to the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office, Conway said.
“We helped process the scene,” Conway said. “We recovered multiple shell casings in the roadway.”
Tabor City Fire Department provided lights on the scene to assist investigators, Conway said.
(Corrects details in an earlier version of this story that Reaves was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Loris.)
Look for more on this story as events warrant, and in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.
