By BOB HIGH

An argument over a $5 loan led to a shooting here early Sunday that killed a Chadbourn man in a street incident in the Columbus Court Apartments complex.

Jamar Devon McAlister, 22, of Tommie Wooten Road, Chadbourn, died in Columbus Regional Healthcare here at 1:55 a.m. Sunday, 75 minutes after he was shot in the head getting out of a car in the 200 block of North Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

Brandon Alexander Troy, 23, who has lived in Whiteville and Chadbourn during the past two years, was charged with murder and arrested eight hours later in a home three blocks from the shooting scene.

Whiteville Police Detective Lt. Glenda George relates the following:

McAlister was driving a vehicle that stopped on the street so front-seat passenger Ernest Graham, 20, of Virgil Street, Whiteville, could talk to Troy about paying Graham $5 that Troy had borrowed from Graham.

Troy refused Graham’s request and Graham told McAlister to leave. Graham said he would get the $5 at another time. It was 12:40 a.m.

McAlister, however, told Graham that “they were going to get your money tonight,” and began to get out of the car. Graham saw that Troy had a pistol and told McAlister to watch out.

As McAlister emerged from the car Troy began to raise a revolver and McAlister swung his arm at Troy’s arm, trying to push the pistol away. Troy fired several shots, and one hit McAlister behind the lower right ear and entered the skull area. Another shot could have caused a “graze wound” above the victim’s right eye.

McAlister slumped to the ground and Graham and others in the car put the Chadbourn man in the vehicle and rushed to the hospital. Emergency Room workers placed McAlister on a ventilator to assist his breathing, and when the victim’s family was told there was “no brain activity,” they told hospital employees to take McAlister off the ventilator. The victim lived less than 30 minutes after being removed from the machine.

Troy, who ran on foot along the street in a southerly direction after the shooting, was found in a family member’s home along Calhoun Street here, about three blocks from where the incident took place.

Troy was still on probation after A plea bargain in April 2003 involving three break-in and theft cases in 2002. His probation was for three years. He was on probation at the time he pleaded in 2003. He had been convicted in 2001 in a breaking and entering and larceny case.

Police Sgt. M.F. McGee and Officer Robert Worley took the emergency call and went to the hospital. Officer Thomas Riggins secured the crime scene.

The homicide is Whiteville’s first since Andrew Brown, 42, of Whiteville, was shot and killed on Aug. 16, 2004 at the corner of Virgil Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. Wendell Freeman, 35, of Hallsboro -- finally found in August of this year -- is charged with murder in the Brown death.

This is the eighth homicide this year in Columbus County. Five have taken place in the rural areas of the county, with others in Bolton, Chadbourn and now Whiteville.