North Carolina Sergeant Indicted for Murdering 20-Year Sheriff's Captain in March 27 Romantic Dispute
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Sep 11
North Carolina Sergeant Indicted for Murdering 20-Year Sheriff's Captain in March 27 Romantic Dispute
3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 11
Summary
A grand jury indicted North Carolina Highway Patrol Sgt. Nekime Matu Oxendine, 44, on first-degree murder charges in the March 27 shooting death of Cumberland County Sheriff's Capt. Adam Bean outside a Hope Mills home.
Court filings say the killing followed years of jealousy over Tara Lynn Whitman, who dated Bean in 2022 after ending a long relationship with Oxendine, then reunited with Oxendine in December 2025.
Text messages cited in the warrant show Oxendine threatening Bean and obsessing over Whitman's contact with him; Whitman and Bean had described some of Oxendine's behavior as stalking.
On the night of the shooting, Bean went to Whitman's home after she stopped responding, saw Oxendine's vehicle, confronted him, and kept advancing after Oxendine fired about two warning shots, investigators said.
Bean, a 20-year sheriff's office veteran and assistant chief of detectives, was pronounced dead at the scene and later received a posthumous Merit Award.