The Nation - News from March 27, 1988

A Lumbee Indian activist running for Superior Court judge in North Carolina’s racially troubled Robeson County was found shot to death at his home. Julian T. Pierce, who had complained to a friend of death threats, was shot three times at point-blank range with a shotgun, Sheriff Hubert Stone said. “It just looks like he was actually assassinated,” Stone said. Gov. James G. Martin appealed for calm in Robeson County, where two Indians were charged with holding a newspaper staff hostage in February. Martin said the state is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Pierce’s killer. Pierce, 42, an attorney in Pembroke, N.C., had resigned as director of Lumbee River Legal Services, which provided legal representation to low-income county residents, to seek the newly created judgeship.