A local man was sentenced to serve life in prison after an N.C. Superior Court jury in Edgecombe County recently found him guilty of first-degree murder.
Darryel Hill, 34, stood trial last week for the fatal shooting of another man more than three years ago in Rocky Mount.
Hill on Friday was processed in at Central Prison in Raleigh to begin serving his life sentence, according to N.C. Public Safety records.
Hill was processed into the facility the day after N.C. Superior Court Judge Jeffery Foster signed a judgement ordering him to begin serving the sentence, which does not come with the possibility of parole. Foster credited Hill with 302 days of time served in jail prior to the outcome of the case.
Hill was convicted for the fatal shooting of Markelius Chambers, 27, on Feb. 4, 2021.
Records at the Edgecombe County Courthouse state that police officers found Chambers in the front yard area of a residence in the 1000 block of Branch Street in the Southeast Rocky Mount area. He was taken to the hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival.
The records also state that ShotSpotter alerted authorities to six shots that had been fired in the area at the time the incident was being reported to the 911 operator. ShotSpotter is a system of sensors designed to detect, locate and alert police of gunfire in real time.
The records also state that day after the shooting, police took Hill into custody at the Quality Inn off Benvenue Road.
District Attorney Jeff Marsigli, in a phone interview Monday, said that there are always bittersweet feelings in the outcome of such cases because while justice is served for the families of the victims, other families lose members who are going to prison.
Marsigli, who was elected in November 2022 in a district composed of Edgecombe, Nash and Wilson counties, said his team, with the help of law enforcement, has a “target list” for the prosecution of people who have long been problems in the community.
Marsigli said of Hill that he was the “seventh person on the target list that’s been convicted of something this year.”
Marsilgi also said that he believes the assistant district attorneys are doing a great job of pushing some of these cases and getting them resolved one way or the other.
“And we’ll just have to wait a year or two to see if it makes a difference in our crime, sadly, because we get those numbers far down the road,” he said.
Rocky Mount police Chief Robert Hassell said in an interview Monday that he was pleased with the outcome of the case against Hill.
Hassell said that the police department’s efforts in all investigations are to make sure that the department does a thorough job so that the District Attorney’s Office can gain a conviction.
“And the end result for us is making sure that the family members that are still here have got some type of justice for the loss of their loved one,” Hassell said.
Police Maj. Lynn Gay, in a posting on the police department’s social media page Friday, noted that Hill is a gang member who has been arrested multiple times for violent crimes and the sales of narcotics in the city.
According to N.C. Public Safety records, Hill was convicted in 2011 in Nash County for operating a vehicle without a license and in 2009, also in Nash County, for conspiracy to commit second-degree kidnapping.
Assistant District Attorney Assata Buffaloe prosecuted the first-degree murder case against Hill. An Edgecombe County court official Monday said that Hill’s defense attorney, Thomas Sallenger, told the court his client would appeal the verdict to the N.C. Court of Appeals.
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