Loretta Forbes learned the news coming down her stairs and kept repeating the same prayer: “My God. Oh God.”
Forbes, a neighbor on Forbes Road in Gastonia, North Carolina, had watched the family at 2661 Forbes Road live quietly among six residents in a suburban home just miles from the South Carolina border. Camryn Moore, 26, and her boyfriend Cory Armstrong, 29, were among them until Thursday morning, when police say the pair shot two relatives dead and wounded two children before fleeing across state lines. Officers responded to reports of gunfire inside the residence around 8:43 a.m. Thursday.
“They seem to be very nice people. It just shakes you up to think that could happen so close by,” Forbes told WSOC.
The dead were identified as Victoria “Heather” Moore, 50, Camryn’s mother, and Josiah Bumgardner, 38, Camryn’s uncle. Josiah had previously transitioned from female to male and had been identifying as male, according to family members. Two children survived with gunshot wounds: Heather’s son Keaton and a girl named Autumn. Both were rushed to CaroMont Regional Medical Center with life-threatening injuries and remained in critical but stable condition, according to a GoFundMe established for the family.
Dispatch audio from the chaotic scene captured officers requesting multiple ambulances for “several subjects.” One officer reported that the 911 call taker believed “the niece and the boyfriend are shooting at each other,” referring to Camryn and Cory. Another transmission noted concern that “the nephew may be upstairs, was asleep and was shot.”
Adam Baker, who lives two blocks from the residence, said the massive police presence rattled him. “It’s incredibly unusual. I mean it’s a very quiet neighborhood,” he said.
Brianna Crouse, another Gastonia resident, struggled to process the violence on a street she considered safe. “It’s absolutely nuts. I just can’t believe it,” she told WSOC. “I can’t believe it. Nothing bad has ever happened on this road as long as I’ve lived here.”
Robert Cline, a longtime resident of the area, described south Gastonia as a place where people know each other and trouble rarely surfaces. “There really ain’t no trouble down here in south Gastonia,” he said. “We’re pretty tight-knit; people know each other.”
What prompted Moore and Armstrong to allegedly turn on their own family remains unknown. Following the shootings, the pair fled north. Authorities tracked them through southern Ohio, where they died of gunshot wounds Friday after a high-speed police chase. North Carolina authorities told The Post that both deaths are being investigated as a possible double-suicide, though the Ohio Highway Patrol declined to confirm that account.
Forbes, still searching for understanding, told WSOC she wants answers about what shattered the household she had observed from nearby. “I want to know what happened. I want to know about the family,” she said, adding that she is praying for them.
The wounded children remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition as the community grappled with bloodshed in a place unaccustomed to it.