Brothers plead guilty in North Carolina deputy’s shooting death

Raleigh, NC – Two brothers pleaded guilty on Tuesday for counts linked to the murder for the death of an assistant to a sheriff of North Carolina three years ago, when the authorities said that the officer had approached a truck late in the night in a rural area.

Alder Marin-Sotelo, 28, pleaded guilty to a first degree murder in the court of the county of Wake during the murder of the 48-year-old deputy Ned Byrd, an officer of the K-9. Man’s brother, Arturo Marin-Sotelo, 32, pleaded guilty to be an accessory after first-degree murder.

The judge of the Superior Court, Graham Shirley, sentenced Alder Marin-Sotelo to life imprisonment without having the possibility of freeing on parole and Arturo Marin-Sotelo to a prison sentence between about eight to 10 years.

The two had already been accused of murder and had to be tried in September 2026. The colleagues, family and friends of Byrd filled the courtroom to see the agreements to advocate.

“We know that you can say in the outpouring of the love and support of the Sheriff office – all those who were present here today – that it was a great loss for our community and for this agency,” Freeman told the judge.

Freeman said evidence would have been presented at the trial which showed that Byrd was traveling on the night of August 11, 2022, in his patrol vehicle en route to a police training center for his dog when he noticed a van next to a fence on the side of a dark road. Byrd stopped and moved his vehicle to the truck.

A recording of his camera in the car showed that Byrd came out of the vehicle, and a few seconds later, six shots could be heard, later followed by the van leaving, said Freeman. An autopsy determined that the officer had been killed four times, three at the back of the head, said the prosecutor in court. The brothers, who were from Mexico, were finally located in vehicles separated in western North Carolina a few days after the shots.

The legal proceedings had been largely delayed because in April 2023, Alder Marin-Sotelo escaped a prison in Virginia where he was detained after pleading guilty of months earlier to a federal accusation of possession of firearms by someone in the country illegally.

The FBI said Alder Marin-Sotelo had been placed in police custody a few days later in Mexico. It was held there until February 2025, when Mexico agreed to send to the United States nearly 30 prisoners requested by the federal government.

The first degree murder can be punished by the death penalty in North Carolina. Freeman said on Tuesday that the withdrawal of a sailor-subsoon in North Carolina forced prosecutors to withdraw the capital punishment from the table. Otherwise, she said: “If there was never a crucial case, this is the type of case that would certainly have been.”

Mignon Perkins, Byrd’s sister, told court before condemning that her brother “was one of the most incredible people you’ve ever known.” Byrd joined the sheriff’s office in 2009.

“You stole my happiness. You stole my joy,” Perkins told defendants. “I am a pious woman, but I will never forgive you for having taken my brother to me.”

Thanks to an interpreter, Arturo Marin-Sotelo said he was sorry for what had happened and had still asked for the sister’s forgiveness because, he said, he could do nothing else.

Freeman said Alder Marin-Sotelo’s mobile phone had placed it on crime scene during the shooting. She said the evidence had safeguarding Arturo Marin-Sotelo’s statement to the police that the brothers had led in a field of the county of Wake to chase the deer.

After Tuesday’s hearing, Freeman confirmed that Arturo Marin-Sotelo told investigators that he had crossed the woods with a rifle while his brother parked the truck. Arturo Marin-Sotelo then said that on the phone, his brother “made statements that an officer was killed” and that the brother went to the other side of the field to look for him, said Freeman.

Freeman said that the cartridges of the cartridge on the crime scene and in the van were taken from the same unknown pistol, and that a DNA sample of the younger brother equaled a DNA profile collected on the pistol issued by the Byrd police. The weapon was in Byrd’s case when found, the belt twisted around his body. It appeared that Alder-Sotelo had tried to remove the Byrd pistol before abandoning, according to Freeman.