Suspect in Wake courthouse shooting made extraordinary claims against her neighbors
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Gwendolyn White alleged neighbors hacked her phone and 95 other accounts.
- She also alleged that neighbors poisoned her food, toothbrush and beverages.
- Police say White shot two attorneys after a courthouse hearing in Raleigh on Friday.
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Courthouse shooting
Two lawyers were shot outside the old Wake County Courthouse on Friday, May 22, 2026, after they were involved in a court case with the suspect. Gwendolyn White, the suspected shooter, is now charged with attempted murder. Here’s ongoing coverage about the case.
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Newly available court records show Gwendolyn White, the woman accused of shooting two attorneys in downtown Raleigh on Friday, claimed her Rolesville neighbors hacked her phone and 91 other accounts and twice slipped harmful medications into her dresser.
Across dozens of pages, White also claimed her neighbors wiped poison on her toothbrush, put it in sodas in her refrigerator and stole thousands of dollars from her bank accounts.
The extreme allegations, contained in court filings dating back to 2022, provide new details on the years-long court dispute that put White and the attorneys in court Friday and that later led to the shooting in an alley next to the Wake County courthouse.
White, 57, now faces two charges of attempted murder after police said she shot Mary Harris and Jeffrey Whitley, both lawyers at the Raleigh office of national firm Fox Rothschild, which represented Rolesville police in the case. Both are expected to recover, police have said.
The two attorneys were involved in a Superior Court hearing with White on Friday morning, The News & Observer previously reported. The hearing stemmed from a 2021 altercation between White and her neighbors, and White’s quest to get video from police body-worn camera footage from the incident.
On Tuesday, a judge denied White bail and filed a motion to determine whether she is mentally competent to move forward with the criminal process.
Gwendolyn White’s March 2021 call to 911
White’s pursuit of the video is one of at least 15 lawsuits White has filed in Wake County court the last 30 years, The News & Observer previously reported.
Court filings indicate that on March 3, 2021, White called 911, accusing her neighbors of pouring chemicals on her yard and plants. She then called again to report someone breaking into her home. Initial court filings in the case, which were unavailable Friday, were provided to The N&O on Tuesday morning.
After three Rolesville police officers spoke to White and the neighbors, police didn’t believe the neighbors had committed any crimes and deleted related body-camera footage after 30 days, which is the department’s policy, Rolesville police said in court documents.
Nearly a year after that March 2021 interaction, White filed a petition in Wake County Superior Court seeking an order requiring police to release videos of the interaction.
White contended the videos would show her neighbors making racist comments and confessing to hacking her cable, telephone and social media accounts, she wrote in court documents. Her neighbors also admitted to tracking her movements from cameras outside her house and by using her telephone, White contended.
“My testimony is 100% true,” White wrote in the March 2021 filing.
Rolesville police have said the footage doesn’t include a confession by White’s neighbors and denied all other allegations White made in her filings.
Videos show neighbor confessing to crimes, White says
In February 2022, in response to two petitions filed by White, two judges ordered the Rolesville Police Department to provide the recordings of the interaction or the policy explaining why they had been deleted.
On March 18, 2022, White filed a motion asking a judge to find the police in contempt, saying they had not provided videos or logs of her 196 calls to 911. White contends police should have kept the videos after her hundreds of emails about the interactions.
White stated that footage documenting the 2021 interaction would show that the wife of married neighbors had confessed that her husband had hacked White’s accounts, including her internet, telephone, Facebook, Instagram, and AOL account as well as her security services, ADT and CPI. In the filing, White claimed the wife said her husband had hacked White’s bank accounts and taken money from them.
White also contended that neighbors had stolen a $1,499 purse from her closet, six leather coats, and $25,000 in cashier checks and $1,158 in cash. They also had poured nails across her driveway, broke a wreath, moved her welcome sign and changed the code on her garage door opener, she said.
“They are mean, these people went in my refrigerator, opened up drink and poured chemicals in them,” White wrote. “My sister got sick and kept vomiting for 2 days. Luckily I don’t drink sodas but my mother and family does.”
White also accuses builder of her home of harassing her
White also questioned whether Rolesville’s chief of police was allowing his friendship with her neighbors, the builder of her neighborhood, to come first. White contended the builder of her home never turned in the master key, which she said let her neighbors and others enter her home.
“Chief Simmons of the Rolesville PD is aiding and abetting in criminal behavior by covering up criminal activities against me, my Family and destroying our property and break-in our home over 3 dozen times with the Master Key,” White wrote at the time.
White contended that police had told her the builder of her home had told his staff, White’s neighbors and her friends to destroy her property and to torment and harass her because they wanted her to “burn through your money” so they could force her to move, White stated in court documents.
Rolesville police respond, deny allegations
Rolesville police told a judge they were able to recover some of the videos and provided them to the judge to review in 2022.
The footage doesn’t show a confession by the neighbors to improper behavior, nor statements ‘that reflect poorly on RPD,” police said in the filing.
White’s neighbors asked a judge to issue a no-contact order against White three days after the March 2021 interaction, according to White’s court filing. The builder also sought a no-contact order in 2021 and 2022, White wrote.
In objecting to those orders, White wrote that her neighbors had perjured themselves multiple times and had conspired with Rolesville police, who she said told her 14 times “I could be shot in the head and no one would know where the bullet originated from.”
In a May 2022 court filing, White sought to subpoena Facebook and other company representatives to appear in court and explain why her Verizon, AT&T, ADT, Spectrum, Facebook and Apple accounts had multiple “unknown users” and other unauthorized access.
Friday hearing considered White’s motion for new trial
In July 2025, White filed another motion accusing the town of contempt of court, saying Rolesville hadn’t given her all the videos.
In January 2026 a judge ordered the town to provide White with a jump drive with the videos it had found, The N&O previously reported. White later reached out to the town and said the jump drive didn’t contain any footage, so the town shared the footage via a file-sharing platform, which White downloaded on Jan. 15, Rolesville attorneys said in court documents. The judge also dismissed White’s motion for a new trial on her accusations of contempt.
The next day, White appealed the judge’s decision. The town objected, saying the police department had “acted with the best intentions in response” to her requests.
White filed another motion accusing one of the town’s attorneys of improperly communicating with the judge before the January hearing. White asked Judge Jennifer Bedford to recuse herself from future hearings, alleging personal bias and other concerns.
A hearing on the motion for a new trial was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday in the Wake County Courthouse, the court calendar stated. The court docket doesn’t say what happened at the hearing.
Raleigh police said White — who represented herself for part of the hearing Friday after her attorney withdrew from the case — became “belligerent” during the hearing and left the building. She returned in her car with a gun, police said, and opened fire on Harris and Whitley around 10:30 a.m, police said.
This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 6:49 PM.
