GARNER, N.C. – The owner of Lizard Lick Towing, a towing and repossession business featured in a reality TV show of the same name, has confirmed that his son was killed in a shooting in North Carolina.
In a post on Facebook, Ronnie Shirley confirmed that Harley Alexander Shirley, 21, was fatally shot in Garner late Thursday. Shirley and his wife, Amy, own Lizard Lick Towing and starred in a truTV reality show based on their family business.
The shooting is being investigated by the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office.
“He’s at peace now – waiting on the rest of us to arrive at those gates – we will be there soon Big Shur – and will always cherish the times we had while you were with us son,” Ronnie Shirley wrote on Facebook.
The show’s verified Facebook page shared the news on Friday and wrote, “The family will always cherish every memory they made with him and never forget the joy he brought into the lives of everyone he met.”
The Charlotte News & Observer reports that deputies responded to a reported shooting at a home around 8 p.m. Thursday. Capt. Jeff Caldwell said in a news release that soon after that, a caller reported people with gunshot wounds in the parking lot of a Sheetz gas station, about 3 miles north of the home.
There, deputies found Shirley, who was pronounced dead at the scene. A 20-year-old woman who also had been shot was taken to the hospital, but her wounds were not thought to be life-threatening, Caldwell said.
WRAL-TV reported the shooting happened while family members were holding a balloon release memorial for a relative who died in a single-car crash on Tuesday. Right after the shooting, multiple suspects fled the home in a yellow vehicle, Caldwell said.
Investigators are working to identify the suspects.
“Lizard Lick Towing” aired from 2011 to 2014.
“What America has been looking for for a long time is real people,” Ronnie Shirley told USA TODAY in 2012. “They want real politicians, they want real doctors, they want real lawyers. They want people who understand them and are like them.”
Contributing: USA TODAY
