Joseph Pate, 52, was shot and killed on December 16, 2018, while boarding a flight at Pitt-Greenville Airport. The shooting happened around 6 a.m. outside the main entrance to the terminal; police found Pate with a gunshot wound and he died at the scene. An 11 a.m. flight was canceled as a precaution before the airport later reopened and resumed commercial operations.

Police say Pate and the suspect, 49-year-old John Reid of Grimesland, knew each other. Reid was taken into custody shortly after the shooting and charged with first-degree murder; he is being held in the Pitt County Detention Center under no bond. The Greenville Police Department is leading the investigation with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office and Pitt-Greenville Airport management.

Pate was born May 12, 1966, in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and worked for Weyerhaeuser in Grifton. He is survived by his wife, Donna Sease Pate; three children, Joshua Pate, Brittany Ellisor, and Ashley Ellisor; two grandchildren, Chase Pate and Hadley Moss; his parents Judy Crumpler Pate and Joseph Nelson Pate Sr; and his dog Lucy. Funeral services were held December 21, 2018, at First Christian Church in Roanoke Rapids, with interment at Cedarwood Cemetery.

If anyone has information about the morning of December 16, 2018, at Pitt-Greenville Airport, please come forward.