On January 11, 2024, at about 9 p.m. Fayetteville police responded to reports of gunfire in the 700 block of Tamarack Drive and found 32-year-old Jonathan Connell in the driver’s seat of his vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds. Emergency medical services pronounced him dead at the scene.

Connell’s widow, Mikayla, publicly appealed for information in the days after the killing, stating a desire to understand what happened and to identify those responsible. Investigators later developed links between the shooting and an arranged meeting at the Lake in the Pines apartment complex, where Connell was said to be selling 60 pills. Cellphone records and a palm print matching Malcolm Robinson on Connell’s vehicle were cited as evidence.

In June 2024 authorities arrested 28-year-old James Dewan Goodman Jr. and 28-year-old Malcolm Robinson, charging both with first-degree murder and conspiracy to traffic opium/heroin; both were held without bail in the Cumberland County Detention Center. Did anyone in the area see or hear anything that night or know more about the meeting at Lake in the Pines?