In the early hours of Tuesday, February 17, 2026, deputies from the Wilkes County Sheriff’s Office responded to a reported shooting at a home on Dogwood Road Extension in the Brushy Mountain community of Moravian Falls, North Carolina. Officers found 41-year-old Jason Gregory Olney with multiple gunshot wounds; emergency medical personnel pronounced him dead at the scene.

Investigators say Olney’s reported girlfriend, 39-year-old Megan Jane Thomas of North Wilkesboro, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. She is being held in the Wilkes County Jail without bond, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is assisting the Wilkes County Sheriff’s Office as the inquiry continues.

Olney was a father to two daughters, Jayda Marie and Jozlyn Ann, and family members remembered a period when he hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine for seven months, a time they described as transformative. If anyone in the Brushy Mountain or Moravian Falls area has information about the shooting or knew Jason, please come forward.