Reward doubled to $20K for tips in I-95 road rage shooting
Editor’s Note: Another story saying there had been an arrest in this case was inadvertently published. There has been no arrest.
Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins announced Tuesday that his office would double the reward offered for tips in a road rage shooting on Interstate 95. The reward now stands at $20,000.
Julie Eberly, of Manheim, Pa., was shot and killed near exit 22 in Lumberton as she rode with her husband to Hilton Head, S.C., for a wedding anniversary celebration.
Ryan Eberly told a reporter from their hometown station, "In three minutes, my whole world is turned upside down, and I don’t know why."
Witnesses said the shots were fired just before noon Thursday from a gray or silver mid-2000s model Chevrolet Malibu or Impala with tinted windows and chrome around the window frame. The car was last seen getting off I-95 at Exit 22 and driving over the bridge into Lumberton, authorities said.
Anyone with a business or home near Elm Street and Roberts Avenue is asked to review their surveillance system for the vehicle of the photograph. Investigators are looking for footage between 11:40 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on March 25.
"A huge hole has been left in our immediate family and in our extended family as well," Ryan Eberly told WMBF in Myrtle Beach. "She was my life partner and my best friend."
Eberly was shot through the passenger door of her car and died at UNC Southeastern Hospital in Lumberton. Her husband, who was driving at the time, wasn't hurt.
The vehicle Eberly was riding in came close to another vehicle while merging, according to investigators. A person in the other vehicle then drove up beside her vehicle, rolled down the window and fired several shots.
“This was an innocent family from Pennsylvania headed to the beach for a vacation," Wilkins said in a statement. "Thankfully, they had left their six children at home with grandparents, but now these kids have to live with the thought of their mother being murdered in such a cowardly and senseless way."
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call 911 or the Robeson County Sheriff's Office at 910-671-3170.
