Father slain seven years after mother's murder

Dunn, N.C. — A Dunn family has been torn apart by a weekend shooting that left a father dead and his stepson charged with murder, the victim's mother said Tuesday.

Logan Matthew Suter, 17, is charged with second-degree murder in the Sunday night shooting death of Edward "Chris" Lancaster, 33, at their house at 112-A Fairfield Circle. He was being held Tuesday in the Harnett County Jail under a $150,000 bond.

Investigators said Lancaster was shot once in the abdomen with a 12-gauge shotgun.

WATCH VIDEO
Dunn family torn apart by slaying

"He walked upstairs, got my grandson's shotgun that he got for Christmas (and) loaded it," Lancaster's mother, Sally Murphy, said of Suter. "He knew what he was doing."

Murphy said Lancaster's two children, 12-year-old C.J. and 14-year-old Chelsea, were home at the time of the shooting. She said Chelsea called her grandmother and authorities to report the shooting.

"She said, 'Logan has shot Daddy,' and she had me on the house phone and 911 on her cell phone," Murphy said.

The slaying was devastating for the two children, whose mother was killed in 2002, she said.

Brenda Renee Lancaster, 27, was shot to death on Easter in 2002, and her body was dumped in a drainage ditch along Interstate 95 near Dunn. Her former boyfriend, Kenneth Earl Byrd Jr., was convicted of murder in the case.

"They've ... lost their mother to murder seven years ago, and now they've lost their father to murder. They have nobody left," Murphy said.

Chris Lancaster was released from prison last year after serving time on a gun charge. Murphy and other relatives said he was trying to get his life together when he was killed.

She said she plans to be at every court appearance and every hearing for Suter.

"He deserves to be punished. My son and my grand-babies deserve justice," she said. "That's the only child I had. He was my world, and he is gone."