NC man, ‘the favorite sibling,’ was buying marijuana when he was killed, warrants say

A young man fatally shot outside the Worthdale Community Center last month was being robbed while buying marijuana, according to recently released search warrants.

Quadir Ford, 22, died from his injuries at WakeMed.

Police initially charged three suspects with murder in Ford’s death. Nicholas Holloway Jr., 21, Gerald Thomas Jr., 23, and Eric Scott, 22, were arrested Jan. 28.

Jaiiviouan Kelly, 21, was arrested and also charged with murder in Ford’s death two days later.

The suspects were identified through surveillance footage and confessed to law enforcement officers about their roles in the shooting, according to the search warrants.

Holloway stated he knew Ford and was selling him marijuana, according to the warrants.

On the day of the shooting, Holloway, Thomas and Scott were seen on surveillance video walking into the community center before meeting with Kelly, the warrants state.

According to the warrants, they went to Ford’s car and Scott got into the passenger’s front seat, Kelly got into the back seat and Holloway and Thomas ran to the driver’s side door when a single gunshot was fired. Holloway and Thomas got into the car with Scott and drove off while Kelly ran into the woods.

Through interviews with Holloway, Thomas and Scott, law enforcement determined Kelly shot Ford, the warrants state.

“They all identified Kelly as the subject that shot the victim,” detective T. Jackson wrote in an application for one of the warrants.

According to N.C. Department of Public Safety records, Thomas has been convicted of breaking and entering, breaking and entering vehicles and larceny. Scott was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in 2016. Holloway was convicted of breaking and entering in 2019. Kelly has been convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon.

All of the suspects remain in custody.

“Everybody loved Quadir”

Ford’s death, Raleigh’s second homicide in 2020, left his family with questions and a community advocate shocked that a man who did community service with her may have been involved.

Ford’s cousin Brianna Marie spoke with The News & Observer on behalf of Ford’s family.

“I was under the impression that Quadir quit (using marijuana),” Marie said.

Ford would have turned 23 Feb. 4. He was one of seven siblings, Marie said. Ford’s mother and Marie’s uncle first met in 2006 when Ford was 9 years old and they eventually got married, Marie said. His mother had two other children and Marie’s uncle had four.

“He really was the favorite sibling,” Marie said. “Everybody loved Quadir.”

Ford was dedicated to his family and hoped to be married and have kids some day, Marie said.

The last time Marie saw Ford, he was picking up his siblings from a school play in December.

When Marie was pregnant, Ford helped out whenever she asked, she said. But when she asked for help after her child had been born, Ford would joke, “You ain’t pregnant no more.”

But Ford was reliable. “Who else comes at one in the morning to change your tire when you gotta go to work at six?” Marie said.

Ford had been working as a truck driver since he got a commercial driver’s license in 2018, she said. “He didn’t like being on the road alone,” she said.

Despite losing a cousin she loved, Marie is forgiving of Thomas and the other men charged in Ford’s death.

“I don’t feel they intentionally did these kinds of things,” she said. “He would’ve wanted them to be better.”

The killing also surprised a woman who knows one of the suspects.

Kimberly Muktarian, president of Save Our Sons, a group for African Americans that provides education, reentry services and court advocacy, said it was shocking to see Thomas implicated in Ford’s murder.

“This is not the crimes that I ever saw him getting into,” Muktarian said in a statement. “I see him as a typical teenager, not a murderer,” she said in an interview.

Muktarian said Thomas served 75 hours of community service at her organization in 2014. She declined to say what he was accused of, saying he was a juvenile at the time.

“When he came to me, he had braces,” she said in an interview. “I trusted him.”

Thomas’ grandmother raised him, the statement said. She had to drag around an oxygen tank. They used to live in Raleigh, Muktarian said, but arrest records say Thomas was staying with Holloway in Franklin County at the time of his January arrest

“He attended Enloe High School and is (a) very nice young man,” Muktarian stated. “He worked to support himself and his grandmother while attempting to finish school.”

“Our men do not wake up and decide they want to be murderers,” she said. “It is the breakdown of families and the systematic breakdown of our communities.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 4:22 PM.