Testimony is continuing in the first degree murder trial of Prentiss McDuffie in Columbus County Superior Court.
McDuffie and Demarius Washington were arrested for the deaths of Alexis Ciprian Trujillo, 5; his mother Nancy Trujillo Espinoza; and Leonel Ciprian Noyola were killed in the Sept. 7, 2019 home invasion, and Rafaela Noyola Jaramillo was seriously injured. Alexis was a kindergarten student at Whiteville Primary.
The shooting spree occurred in a home on Brittany Lane off N.C. 130. It was originally reported that Washington and McDuffie went to the residence about a car that was for sale. Washington was arrested with the stolen car during a drug raid on Twin Pines Road. The men stole around $6,000 in cash from the home along with the car.
Washington was originally charged with felony possession of cocaine and possession of a stolen vehicle on Sept. 10.
McDuffie was arrested again in October on charges from an August home invasion in Whiteville, when he allegedly used an AR-15 rifle to take electronics, jewelry, and a bobblehead doll. He allegedly assaulted the victim during the robbery, according to warrants.
McDuffie was spotted by Whiteville Police in the Ivy’s restaurant parking lot, where he was taken into custody. He was charged with second degree kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, possession of stolen goods and resisting an officer. He was jailed under $201,000 secured bond.
Both men saw their charges raised to murder in the months after the killings. Washington spent hours on the witness stand during his trial earlier this year, trying to blame McDuffie for the killings. On what would have been Alexis Trujillo’s 11th birthday, the jury returned a guilty verdict in less than an hour.
The killing is the third triple-homicide in recent history in the county. Three Latino males died after an argument in a Nakina home in 1997. That case has never been solved. In 2005, Danny Lamont Thomas shot and killed a married couple and another man on Dessie Road near Chadbourn. Thomas was also charged in a murder in Durham. He was found guilty and is on Death Row.
McDuffie’s trial is expected to last three weeks.
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