GARNER, N.C. (AP) — The owner of Lizard Lick Towing, a towing and repossession business featured in a reality TV show, has confirmed that his son was killed in a shooting in North Carolina.
In a post on Facebook, Ronnie Shirley confirmed that Harley Shirley, 21, was fatally shot in Garner late Thursday. Shirley and his wife, Amy, own Lizard Lick Towing and starred in a truTV reality show based on their family business from 2011 to 2014.
The shooting is being investigated by the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office.
“He’s at peace now — waiting on the rest of us to arrive at those gates — we will be there soon Big Shur — and will always cherish the times we had while you were with us son,” Ronnie Shirley wrote on Facebook.
The News & Observer reportsthat deputies responded to a reported shooting at a home around 8 p.m. Thursday. Capt. Jeff Caldwell said in a news release that soon after that, a caller reported people with gunshot wounds in the parking lot of a Sheetz gas station, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of the home.
There, deputies found Shirley, who was pronounced dead at the scene. A 20-year-old woman who also had been shot was taken to the hospital, but her wounds were not thought to be life-threatening, Caldwell said.
WRAL-TV reported the shooting happened while family members were holding a balloon release memorial for a relative who died in a single-car crash on Tuesday in Fuquay-Varina. Right after the shooting, multiple suspects fled the home in a yellow vehicle, Caldwell said. Investigators are working to identify the suspects.
