On September 27, 2022 Lionel Price, 36, was sentenced to 56 years in prison after being convicted of 2 counts of attempted murder in Charlotte, NC.
In June 2020, the two victims were running errands together in Charlotte when they picked up Lionel, who was a friend of one of the victims. At some point while Lionel was in the backseat, he fired a gun, shooting the victim who was sitting in the front passenger seat.
The other victim, who was in the driver’s seat, looked back as gun smoke filled the car, and he heard several more gunshots. Then, he saw Lionel flee the vehicle with a gun in his hand.
The victim in the passenger seat was slumped over the center console. He sped away until he saw a police officer nearby. He stopped, got out of his car, and flagged down the officer.
It was only then that this victim realized he had also been shot. Both victims had been shot at least three times. Lionel was arrested a few days later.
Lionel was wearing an electronic monitor at the time of the shooting, and electronic monitoring data placed him at the scene of the shooting.
A tip led to the discovery of the firearm, which contained Lionel’s DNA on the trigger guard, and a firearm analysis found that this gun was the one that fired the discharged cartridge casings that were located inside the victim’s vehicle.
Lionel has a history of weapons related crimes. Lionel was found guilty of two counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, two counts of discharging a weapon into an occupied vehicle in operation, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
The judge sentenced Lionel to a total of 678-850 months in prison.
