DAVIE COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to shooting and killing a woman in a tragic case of mistaken identity, according to court officials.
According to the Superior Court of Davie County, Harold Reid Jr. pleaded guilty on Monday to first-degree murder in the October killing of Quintia Miller, 26, at Rowan Pointe Apartments in Mocksville. He also pleaded no contest to four sex offenses.
Officials said Reid went to the apartments on the morning of Oct. 3 and shot and killed Miller, who was staying with family.
Officers with the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force and the Davie County Sheriff’s Office were at the apartments looking for a person in an unrelated case when they heard shots fired and saw Reid. He was taken into custody at the scene.
He was due in court that week in a sex-crimes case, and investigators said he went to the apartments looking for Shavonne Barnes in order to stop her from testifying against him. However, he mistook Miller for Barnes and killed her.
“I saw Quintia lying face down, and…Reid Jr. laying on top of her,” Barnes said at the time. “The attack should have never been her. The bullet was meant for me.”
Barnes told FOX8 that Reid molested her as a child and she wanted to tell her story to help prevent him from doing it to anyone else.
“I knew from the point of his release, his goal was to kill me, and he made that very clear,” she said. “I also watched him lay on the ground, and his words to me were…’I was coming for you.’ “Not only did he violate me, but he’s also taken an innocent life because he’s a coward.”
Miller’s friends and family said she had a beautiful smile and always had something nice to say to everyone. She left behind a 6-year-old son and a community of friends, who honored her at Rowan Pointe Apartments the night she died.
