Antionette Mellette, 15, died Tuesday morning after she was shot in the chest with a shotgun inside a residence on Cedar Street. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
When authorities arrived at the scene, they found Mellate's friend, also a 15-year-old girl, still inside the residence. She was arrested and charged as a juvenile with first-degree murder. The Nash County district attorney will decide whether she should be charged as an adult.
Investigators said they still do not know who owned the gun involved and said there could still be more charges. Family members of the victim said the two girls had been best friends since elementary school and said they cannot understand how a small argument turned fatal so quickly.
Both teens had recently run away from their Rocky Mount homes and were staying at the Cedar Street residence with friends, family members said.
"She wasn't a runaway," said the victim's grandmother who shares the same name. "She just didn't want to come home, because she was afraid we were going to send her away, because we knew she was going to get into some trouble.
The victim, who was supposed to start her first year of high school in just a few weeks, leaves behind her mother, grandmother and five brothers and sisters.
"Now that she's not here, I don't know what I am going to do, because that one was named after me," Mellate said. "That was my grandbaby."
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