A man who allegedly shot and killed a North Carolina do-gooder known for outing drug dealers on Facebook Live turned himself in to police Tuesday morning, authorities said.
Douglas Cleveland Colson was charged with first-degree murder for shooting Prentis Robinson, 55, as the victim recorded himself using a selfie stick Monday.
It is unclear if the two men knew each other.
Family members and authorities said Robinson often tried to help the cops and confirmed they worried about him, fearing his vigilante antics would get him into trouble, Fox 46 reported.
Wingate Police Chief Donnie Gay told Fox 46 he always suspected Robinson would get beat up over his snitching on drug dealers — but never that he’d get shot and killed.
Relatives told the outlet Robinson “would try to help police find drug dealers, even though he had his own demons” and they sometimes felt like police were annoyed with him.
Robinson was known for strolling around Wingate and filming, “walking and talking. Just walking and talking. If somebody messed with him he’d definitely go on Live,” one family member told the outlet.
He broadcast himself on Facebook Live almost daily and filmed himself the day he died marching to police headquarters to report that one of his cellphones had been stolen.
“Bring his phone back so he can get on with his way today,” Gay can be seen saying to the camera, in partial footage posted by the Charlotte Observer.
About five minutes into the video, Robinson encounters someone off-camera and informs the person, “You on Live” several times, to alert them that they’re being filming on Facebook.
A man with a long object briefly appears before several shots ring out and the camera lands face up — recording treetops and the sky until someone driving by discovers Robinson’s body.
“OMG what just happened,” one person commented on Facebook, seconds after the shooting.
“That just unreal. For somebody to have the kind of heart to just walk out in the open like that and kill a man, that’s just, it’s nonsense,” Robinson’s longtime friend Charles Baker told WSOC-TV.
According to his Facebook page, Robinson was also a musician and can be seen playing guitar in several other Facebook Live videos on his profile.