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Daryon Terrell Walker, 19, was found shot dead on the front lawn of Snipes Academy of Arts and Design in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Nov. 12, 2008, delaying the elementary school's start, the Wilmington Police Department said.

The principal found the body while arriving for work. Walker, of North Eighth Street, died of a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, police said.

His body was found in a grassy area outside Snipes Academy of Arts and Design, a K-5 magnet school occupying the former Dorothy B. Johnson Elementary building in the 1100 block of McRae Street, just blocks from the home where Walker lived.

Walker had graduated recently from New Hanover High School and was working at a Wilmington restaurant, friends and school staff said. "He's one of the nicest kids you'd ever get to know," said Issiac Simpson, who described himself as a mentor to Walker. New Hanover High principal Chris Furr said he remembered telling Walker at graduation that he was proud of him for staying in school.

Walker's funeral was held Nov. 19, 2008, at Miracle Temple Deliverance Ministries in Burgaw, with burial at Walkertown Cemetery. Investigators said within about a week they had identified two people they considered suspects and expected to seek arrest warrants. By late November, police said they were close to making an arrest but needed witnesses willing to come forward formally. Some residents told reporters they were afraid to talk to police, worried about retaliation in the neighborhood.

On Jan. 29, 2009, Wilmington police charged Jaqualah Shonsa Banks, 19, of Newark, New Jersey, and Juan Bethea, of Wilmington, with murder in Walker's death. Both were held without bond at the New Hanover County jail.

Banks was already in custody on a $2 million bond tied to an armed robbery at a Hardee's on Carolina Beach Road and a shooting at the Houston Moore public housing complex. Police said they also considered her a suspect in the shooting death of an 18-year-old man found with a gunshot wound to the head after what investigators believed was a drug sale and robbery. Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous said detectives were working from evidence, not neighborhood rumors, as the case moved forward.