Left inset: Ezekiel Burden (Lumberton Police Department). Right inset: Ezekiel Burden being arrested at a Greyhound bus station in Chicago (North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation). Background: The Walmart where Nicole Olson was shot and killed (WNCN/YouTube).
A teenager from North Carolina who was on the run after allegedly shooting and killing a woman who was waiting in line at a bank inside of a local Walmart was busted this week trying to board a Greyhound bus in Chicago, according to authorities.
Ezekiel Burden, 17, was caught in the Windy City on Tuesday thanks to joint efforts by the Lumberton Police Department, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, United States Marshal Service and Chicago Police Department who all partnered in the arrest and investigation.
“Ezekiel Burden was arrested at a Greyhound Bus Station in Chicago, Illinois, by the United States Marshals Service (USMS) Fugitive Task Force after an informant provided the whereabouts of Burden,” NCSBI officials reported in a Wednesday press release.
Burden, of Lumberton, North Carolina, was wanted for first-degree murder, discharge of a firearm within an enclosure to incite fear and other charges related to the fatal Dec. 20 shooting of 42-year-old Brandy Nicole Olson at a Walmart Supercenter, according to the Lumberton Police Department. Burden’s buddy, Brian Campbell, 18, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. The two of them allegedly fled from the Walmart after the shooting, with Campbell turning himself in on Dec. 23.
Burden was allegedly trying to kill two other people he “knew” at the Walmart, according to police. He and Campbell appeared to be targeting two people who were standing at the Woodforest Bank located inside the Walmart, police said. Olson was also in line at the bank when she was shot.
Cellphone footage captured by a woman who was inside the Lumberton Walmart has audio where at least six gunshots can be heard ringing out from the front of the store near the bank where Olson was shot.
“The scariest s— I have ever experienced!” wrote Kayleann Brooke on Facebook, where she shared the video.
Another shopper, Steven Rumsey, told Raleigh CBS affiliate WNCN that Olson appeared to be trying to escape during the mayhem when she was accidentally struck by gunfire.
“When he started shooting, the lady ran in front of him,” Rumsey said.
Photos released by the NCSBI show Burden being captured at the Greyhound bus station.
He is reportedly awaiting extradition back to North Carolina at a Chicago jail.
