Durham man sentenced for US Navy vet’s murder outside Hillsborough Road tobacco store
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- Jury convicted Frederick Johnson of murder in Durham tobacco store parking lot shooting.
- AG’s office won life sentence plus an additional 14–32 months for conspiracy charges.
- Warrants tied Johnson to Christopher Hunter, who pleaded guilty to accessory after fact.
A 56-year-old Durham man will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of a U.S. Navy veteran in a tobacco-store parking lot, prosecutors said Thursday.
Jurors found Frederick Johnson guilty of first-degree murder in the 2022 shooting on Hillsborough Road in Durham, where the victim, Derek Sterling, collapsed and died at the VIP Tobacco and Vapes store.
N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s office prosecuted the case at the Durham County district attorney’s request, securing an additonal 14- to 32-month sentence for Johnson on conspiracy charges.
“This violent murderer will spend life in prison for his crimes,” Jackson said in a Thursday news release. “My office will always work with law enforcement to get dangerous criminals off our streets and keep our communities safe.”
Sterling, 41 at the time of his death, graduated from Orange High School in Hillsborough and attended Gardner-Webb University on a soccer scholarship, then transferred to Appalachian State to pursue a business degree, according to his 2022 obituary.
He served in the Navy, enjoyed UNC sports and had a “charismatic” personality, relatives said at the time.
Other man involved
In August of 2022, Johnson pulled up next to Sterling in the tobacco-store parking lot on Hillsborough Road, fired two shots and fled , Jackson’s office said.
But earlier this year, search warrants released in Durham County showed police believed Johnson conspired with another man, Christopher Mikel Hunter, to kill Sterling as retaliation for breaking into Hunter’s house several weeks earlier.
Using an alias, warrants said, Hunter called a Durham detective shortly after the murder and said that both Sterling and Johnson had conspired to rob his house, and that Johnson killed Sterling to stop a blackmail plot about the robbery.
Cell phone records, however, showed that Johnson and Hunter spoke just before and after the shooting, and video footage showed that Johnson came to Hunter’s home and gave him a handgun after the killing, receiving crack cocaine and cash at the scene.
Hunter pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in 2024 and was to receive a mitigated sentence for his testimony in Johnson’s case.
Lexi Solomon contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 2:31 PM.