HICKORY — A North Carolina man has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a 7-year-old boy who was fatally struck while riding in a car with his mother in Hickory earlier this week.
Douglas Mason Wilson, a 23-year-old from Claremont, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder related to the Wednesday night killing of Zakylen Harris, the Hickory Daily Record reported, citing court documents. Wilson was also charged with possession of marijuana.
"Yesterday I asked for your help, and we got it," Hickory Police Chief Thurman Whisnant said Friday at a news conference.
Police have said Harris was a passenger in a car being driven by his mother in Hickory when shots were fired into the vehicle, striking him in the neck. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Two other children were in the vehicle at the time of the shooting. Neither was injured.
Wilson was booked into a local jail Friday morning, the newspaper reported. No bond was set for the murder charge. It was not immediately clear if Wilson had obtained an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
"The path forward to justice is a long one, and there's a lot of work still to be done in this case and a lot of questions that still have to be answered," Whisnant said, before declining to take questions.