Special Prosecutor to Probe Indian Activist’s Death

A special prosecutor was named Wednesday to investigate the killing of Julian Pierce, an American Indian activist who was running for a judgeship and was eulogized as Robeson County’s “best hope for change.”

The state attorney general’s office made the appointment at the request of county Dist. Atty. Joe Freeman Britt, Pierce’s opponent for the Superior Court bench.

Supporters of Pierce, who was found shot to death Saturday, at first said they suspected he was killed because someone did not want a Lumbee Indian to be elected judge. More than 2,300 people attended services for Pierce on Wednesday.

Sheriff Hubert Stone said Tuesday that Pierce’s slaying was apparently linked to a broken romance, not a political vendetta, but that he was still investigating statements made by Sandy Gordon Chavis, who has been charged with murder.

Chavis said it was John Anderson Goins, 24, also a Lumbee Indian from Pembroke, who shot Pierce, Stone said. Goins committed suicide Tuesday.

Jim Coman, senior deputy attorney general, was appointed special prosecutor in the case, said John Simmons, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Lacy Thornburg. Coman said he hoped to begin conferring with other investigators next week.

About 1,500 people attended a memorial service at Pembroke State University and 800 mourners later crowded into a small church in Maxton for Pierce’s funeral.

After the arrest of Chavis, Indian leaders said racial tensions in the area would not go away.

“There’s a tremendous amount of suspicion . . . that perhaps all the answers have not been put forward,” Vernon Bellecourt, a representative of the American Indian Movement, said Wednesday.

Stone said that the killing appeared to stem from Goins’ personal problems with 16-year-old Shannon Bullard, the daughter of Pierce’s girlfriend, Ruth Locklear. The sheriff said Goins may have felt that Pierce had helped Locklear obtain trespassing warrants to keep him away from the girl.