Justin Michael Aiken, 21, of Hickory, North Carolina, was fatally shot on April 7, 2017, in the parking lot of McCroskey’s Irish Pub and Grill. He was inside a Honda Accord with three others when two men drove around the lot in a Ford Fusion, one hanging out the passenger window with an assault rifle, and opened fire into the vehicle. Two other passengers, Quajuae Alexus Kennedy and Cody Manood Bouphavong, both 21, were also killed. A fourth occupant, 20-year-old Cole Brady Ervin, was shot and survived with serious injuries.

Investigators identified Greydon Keith Hansen and Dontray Tyrell Cumberlander as the shooters after witnesses and cellphone video linked their Ford Fusion to the attack. Shell casings and firearms were recovered, and the suspects later admitted involvement. Hansen and Cumberlander pleaded guilty on August 12, 2021, to three counts of second-degree murder, one count of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and one count of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle, and received lengthy prison terms.

Justin was born May 18, 1995, a 2013 graduate of Bunker Hill High School, a member of Christ United Methodist Church in Mountain View, and was attending Cape Fear Community College. He is survived by his father Craig Douglass Aiken, stepfather Joshua Carden, brother Chance Carden, and grandmother Sally Wright.