Combat veteran accused in Southport mass shooting ordered to psychiatric care
The ex-Marine and Iraq war veteran charged with shooting into a waterfront bar in Southport last September, killing three and wounding five, has been ordered to a psychiatric treatment facility and will not stand trial in the near future.
A Superior Court judge in Brunswick County on Tuesday ordered that Nigel Max Edge, who was 40 during September’s mass shooting, be sent to Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro.
Earlier Tuesday, Edge’s court-appointed attorney filed a motion asking for such treatment because he “has severe physical and mental health diagnoses” and is under order declaring him incapable to proceed in the case.
District Attorney Jon David said Tuesday that two experts for the defense and an independent forensic examiner found Edge “lacks capacity” for trial, according to ABC 11, The N&O’s newsgathering partner, but that he “may be restored to capacity through appropriate treatment, including medication and counseling.”
If that happens, the legal case would continue.
Wounded in combat
In September, a boat with one person aboard pulled up alongside the American Fish Co. on the Cape Fear River and fired multiple shots at the dockside night spot while a live band played, Southport police said.
Officers in nearby Oak Island soon apprehended Edge loading his boat on a public dock, noting that the suspect was well-known locally and according to Police Chief Todd Coring, “suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Shortly after the shooting, David said that while Edge had brushes with the law in the past, nothing suggested he was capable of violence.
Edge, who changed his name from Sean DeBevoise in 2023, served two deployments in Iraq where he suffered multiple gunshot and shrapnel wounds, including one to his head, an ordeal he chronicled in a self-published book.
In 2020, he published an account of his service titled “Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation,” in which he describes joining the Marines after the Sept. 11 attacks, then serving on one deployment in Haiti and two in Iraq. On the second in 2006, he described being shot three times and taking hits from shrapnel during an ambush in Anbar Province in Iraq.
In 2007, the Star-News of Wilmington interviewed Edge, then known as DeBevoise, after his treatment in New Hanover Regional Medical Center. Only a year earlier, the newspaper wrote, doctors had told him he would never walk.
He carried a bullet in his brain, walked with a cane and had a skull that was half plastic. The following years are described as slow recovery. “I’m a quiet man and most of the time I think too much,” he wrote. “I am overlooked a lot and unless I’m asked, I normally don’t tell. But I’m confident, even after being wounded. I don’t feel the need to broadcast my grievances. ...”
Multiple lawsuits allege conspiracies
Earlier in 2025, Edge filed multiple lawsuits alleging a variety of conspiracies, including that he was “human trafficked” by an LGBTQ conspiracy and was set up to be murdered in Iraq as a “hate crime.” Police said they had visited his house and knew him well, but their contacts with him were minor until the shooting.
After the shooting, Gov. Josh Stein said North Carolina must find better connection between its law enforcement and health care systems, linking people who are a “challenge” with treatment they need.
He referenced “red flag bills” that have been repeatedly filed by Democrats but so far have not passed in the General Assembly, controlled by Republicans. These laws vary from state to state, but in general they allow family members, law enforcement or health care providers to petition the courts to remove firearms for up to a year in cases where people are threats to themselves or others.
Edge’s attorney’s motion said Cherry Hospital has a considerable waiting period and asked that his client be taken temporarily to Central Prison in Raleigh.
This story was originally published April 8, 2026 at 10:34 AM with the headline "Combat veteran accused in Southport mass shooting ordered to psychiatric care."