Nicholas J.C. Mitchell turned 18 on Thursday, and was indicted for first degree murder as an adult.
Mitchell and Kenneth Bernard Wooten are alleged to have shot and killed Michael Jason Scott, 54, on Ward Street in Whiteville in June 2023. Wooten was arrested shortly after the killing. Mitchell was later taken into custody and detained in a juvenile facility, Whiteville Police reported at the time.
Mitchell’s address was listed as 65 10th St., Bolton. His bond was initially set at $1 million.
Both Mitchell and Wooten are being held without bond.
The Ward killing was not Wooten’s first murder charge.
Court records show Wooten was charged with murder in 2017. He was arrested for shooting death of Jacob Baldwin, a West Columbus High School football player, at a home on Jackson Street in 2016.
Wooten was on house arrest at the time, and allegedly cut off his ankle monitor and went on a shooting spree in Chadbourn on Nov. 25-26, 2017, wounding one man and damaging several homes. A number of shooting incidents were reported in the town at that time.
A Columbus County grand jury refused to indict Wooten in the Baldwin killing, but he later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He was released from prison in May 2023 – less than a month before Ward was killed,, according to the Department of Corrections (DOC). Wooten served 17 months in prison and was placed on post-release supervision.
Prior to the 2017 incident, Wooten allegedly shot Christopher Aaron Blackwell in Chadbourn during a dispute over marijuana. Blackwell was not seriously injured.
After that incident, Wooten was placed on supervised release on charges of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, common law robbery, carrying a concealed weapon and narcotics possession in that case, according to court and DOC records.
