Kayla Kyle was a 31-year-old Black woman, a U.S. Air Force veteran and a mother of two who had returned to her hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina, after ten years in the military. She worked at the Lumberton Children’s Clinic and was described by family as warm and caring; her mother, Felicia Kyle, called Kayla her best friend. The family was planning a fish fry that evening and preparing for Kayla’s young daughter’s upcoming birthday when everything changed.

On the afternoon of Friday, July 24, 2020, just before 5 p.m., Kayla was leaving the Family Dollar on East Fifth Street with her two children, then ages 11 and 2. After getting them into her car, a man approached and attempted to steal the vehicle. As Kayla tried to drive away to protect her children, the man opened fire. Her car crashed into a pile of bricks; Kayla and another shopper, 41-year-old Kimberly Hunt, were found shot and killed. Witnesses reported a man in a hoodie had been dropped off in a gray car and fired into multiple vehicles backing out of parking spaces. Based on tips, authorities arrested a suspect in Florence, South Carolina, four days later on July 28.

Did anyone in Lumberton see a gray car or a man in a hoodie in that shopping center on the afternoon of July 24, 2020?