Inset: Ned Byrd (Wake County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Alder Marin-Sotelo, left, and Arturo Marin-Sotelo during their sentencing in Byrd’s death (WNCN/YouTube).
Two brothers are headed to prison for the murder of a North Carolina cop who was shot and killed in the line of duty.
Wake County Sheriff’s Deputy Ned Byrd was shot to death in 2022 while investigating a suspicious vehicle. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced 29-year-old Alder Marin-Sotelo to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, while his brother Arturo Marin-Sotelo, 32, will serve between roughly seven to 10 years behind bars for accessory after the fact.
Byrd, 48, was patrolling the southeastern portion of Wake County around 11 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2022, when he saw a suspicious vehicle near the intersection of Battle Bridge Road and Auburn Knightdale Road. When he exited the vehicle, Alder Marin-Sotelo opened fire, shooting Byrd four times with an AK-47. Three of those shots were “execution style” to the back of the head, prosecutors stated, according to local CBS affiliate WNCN.
Arturo Marin-Sotelo sold the vehicle they were in after the murder, police said.
Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, attended by Byrd’s family and fellow deputies, was emotional.
“My brother was the helping hand when you needed it,” the victim’s sister, Mignon Perkins, told the court. “The protector at all times, even when you didn’t know you needed protection. Ned was stolen from me and everyone his life had touched.”
Perkins then turned her attention to the Marin-Sotelo brothers.
“Ned was all I had left, and you took him from me,” she expressed, speaking through tears. “Who are you to take a life? Who are you to take the kindest person you would have ever met? You have stolen my happiness. You have stolen my joy. I’m a godly woman, but I will never forgive you for taking my brother from me.”
Arturo Marin-Sotelo was the only one of the brothers to speak. He apologized on behalf of himself and his brother and spoke to Perkins directly.
“If she believes in God, I ask her to forgive me,” he said.
Alder Marin-Sotelo also faces a federal firearms charge for possessing a firearm while living in the U.S. illegally. While in federal custody, he escaped from jail and fled to Mexico with the help of his sister, according to authorities. He was later apprehended and extradited back to the United States.
Byrd was a 13-year veteran of the Wake County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s just one of those things you don’t realize how big of a hole it leaves once he has gone,” his partner Sgt. Andrew Staton told local NBC affiliate WRAL. “I wish we could have Byrd back. I would give anything. You never know when you’re going to lose somebody.”
