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Suspect Arrested In Road Rage Killing Of Mom Shot To Death On I-95 Anniversary Trip
“Regardless of the circumstances, no one deserved to be murdered while traveling our nation’s highways,” Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said of the road rage-motivated shooting of Julie Eberly.
One week after a Pennsylvania mother was shot to death in a road rage killing while on an anniversary trip with her husband, authorities have announced the arrest of a suspect in the case.
Dejwyan R. Floyd, of Lumberton, North Carolina, was arrested early Thursday morning around 12:38 a.m. in connection with the death of 47-year-old Julie Eberly. The 29-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder and discharging a weapon into an occupied property, according to a statement from the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office.
Eberly was shot through the passenger door of her GMC Yukon on March 25 at approximately 11:40 a.m. while riding along I-95 north with her husband, who was behind the wheel.
“The investigation revealed a road rage encounter unknowingly developed after the victim’s GMC Yukon came close to the suspect’s Chevrolet Malibu during a merge into a lane,” the sheriff’s office said. “The suspect then pulled to the victim’s side, rolled down his window and fired multiple shots into the passenger door.”
Eberly’s husband, Ryan Eberly, later told WGAL he had changed lanes and didn’t see that another car was coming up behind him.
“I didn’t see that he was going around me. I pushed him to the shoulder mistakenly,” he said. “As soon as I was able, I gave him room to get back on the highway. No car contact.”
But the interaction apparently enraged the driver — later identified by investigators as Floyd.
“I saw in my mirror that he was passing us to the right. Gunshots were fired, and our car was hit,” Eberly told the station. “My wife yelled my name, and I asked if she was hit. She said yes.”
She was transported to UNC Southeastern where she later died.
The couple had been traveling to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina from their Pennsylvania home to celebrate their seventh anniversary with another couple at the time of the deadly shooting.
Authorities were able to identify Floyd as the suspect in the shooting after reviewing surveillance footage from dozens of area businesses and residents that helped to piece together his movements after the shooting, they said.
“Regardless of the circumstances, no one deserved to be murdered while traveling our nation’s highways,” Sheriff Burnis Wilkins said in the statement.
Floyd was taken into custody and is currently being held at the Robeson County Detention Center.
Wilkins told local station WBTW that he was glad the case had resulted in an arrest.
In the days after the deadly shooting, Wilkins said, Floyd had allegedly gone to lengths to alter the appearance of his vehicle, pulling “the tent off the car” and removing a sticker from the back window, but had still been driving the vehicle.
Floyd, whose first court appearance is scheduled for Thursday, has a prior criminal record that includes convictions for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, according to WBTW. He was released from prison in 2018 after serving three years behind bars.
