2 Durham brothers charged with 1st-degree murder in quadruple shooting in January
Durham police have charged two brothers with murder in a January shooting that killed two men and injured two others.
One of the men charged was already incarcerated after being convicted of murder this past spring in a 2016 killing.
In the January case, Durham police officers responded around 1:30 a.m. Jan. 31 to a shooting on Sudbury Road and found four men who had been shot.
▪ Jason Epps, 34, of Durham was pronounced dead at the scene.
▪ Terence Kimble, 58, of Durham was taken to Duke Hospital where he died.
▪ The two other men suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Deonte Devon Percell, 28, and Dominique La’Ron Percell, 27, both of Durham, have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, according to a Durham Police Department news release.
They also are charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflicting serious injury, two counts of shooting into an occupied dwelling, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, the release stated.
Deonte Percell was arrested and booked into the Durham County jail without bail. Dominique Percell was already incarcerated in another county.
Loved ‘his mother’s cooking’
Police have not said what they think led to the January shootings.
According to an online obituary, Epps graduated from Riverside High School and attended The Art Institute of Charlotte. He worked as a photographer, barber and hair stylist and was survived by his mother, stepfather, brother and sister.
In addition to his dog Pepper, Epps loved “the Liberian cuisine he was raised on, especially his mother’s cooking,” the obituary stated. “His favorites included fufu, ‘GB’ with pallava sauce, and palm butter with okra.”
An online obituary for Kimble said he was born in Raleigh and grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He moved to North Carolina in the 2000s to prepare for retirement and be closer to his family members in the area, it stated.
Previous murder conviction
In 2016, a federal fugitive task force arrested Dominique Percell in the April 4, 2016, killing of 21-year-old Spencer Garrett Harrison after a grand jury indicted him on charges of murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit both of those crimes, The N&O previously reported.
State records show Dominique Percell was convicted of second-degree murder in March 2023 for the 2016 killing, according to the Department of Adult Correction website.
Four people were eventually charged in connection with the death of Harrison, a Jordan High School graduate, CBS 17 reported in 2017.
We’re launching a weekly homicide tracker for Wake, Durham and Orange counties. Here’s why.
Durham violent crime down
As of June 24, the most recent statistics available, there were 23 reported homicides in Durham this year, about the same as in each of the prior two years by that date.
All told, violent crime in the city is down 6% in 2023 compared to this time last year.
Property crime, led by a 154% increase in car thefts, is up 20%, according to the Durham Police Department’s website.
Anyone with information on the January shootings on Sudbury Road is asked to call Investigator A. Ramos at 919-943-0972 or CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards for information leading to arrests in felony cases and callers never have to identify themselves.
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