Shooting death leaves Raleigh family with unanswered questions

"I want to know why. I want to know why they did this," said Carlos Smith, whose younger brother, Joshua Ramone Smith, was shot outside a vacant business on Glenwood Avenue Saturday night.

Police found the 21-year-old at a nearby Burger King, where a friend had driven him after the shooting. He was taken to a local hospital. where he died.

Four men – Ussef Kamara, 21, Troy Michael Williamson, 22, Luis Herrera, 21, and Raheem Crossley, 23 – are charged in the case.

Raleigh police won't comment on a possible motive or say how the suspects might have known Smith. They have said, however, that the crime wasn't random.

"It wasn't supposed to happen. They didn't have to kill him," Carlos Smith said. "They could have taken what he had and left him so we could enjoy him a little more. He was only 21 years old. He had so many goals."

Carlos Smith says his younger brother was an accomplished athlete at Clinton High School in Clinton and had recently been working in Raleigh for a local construction company, taking college classes online and writing and recording music.

"He had never been in trouble and didn't run around with the wrong crowd," Carlos Smith said. "He was a hard-working, smart, very caring guy. Everybody loved him."

The family knows of no connection between Josh Smith and the suspects other than a woman he had dated who was a mutual friend of the group. They say they suspect a motive might have simply been robbery.

"Who would want to hurt him? He never bothered anyone," said Annie Smith, Josh Smith's aunt.

He had been living with her for the past year-and-a-half, she says, and she described him as a "joy" who made sure to give her a kiss each day.

"I couldn't believe it when I found out he had been shot," Annie Smith said. "I said he's going to fight. He's not going to leave us because he knows we love him. He's going to fight."

But it turned out differently, she says.

"The Lord knows best. He doesn't make any mistakes. When He took (Josh), He took an angel," Annie Smith said.