Victims’ son who confronted triple murder suspect until officials arrived recalls last visit

T.D. Gribble last saw his parents on Jan. 9, after a trip to his family’s hometown of Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Everyone he’d seen there — the jeweler, his old karate instructor — told him to give his mother and father a hug, he said, so after returning to their home in Greenville, he did just that, embracing his mom and giving his dad a kiss on the forehead.

“The next time I saw them was Friday afternoon around 2 p.m., after they’d been murdered,” Gribble, 51, said by phone Tuesday.

After arriving at his parents’ home, Gribble held the suspected shooter — a real estate broker accused of carrying out a series of shootings across Greenville last week, including three that were fatal — at gunpoint until authorities arrived, Pitt County Sheriff Paula Dance told reporters Monday.

David Lever, 55, was charged with three counts of murder in the Jan. 10 killings of Anthony “Tony” Gribble, 80; Paula Gribble, 76; and Enrique Reyes, 64, according to the sheriff’s office.

Authorities have not publicly disclosed a possible motive in the killings.

Lever, who is being held without bail, was appointed a capital public defender during his initial appearance in court Monday, NBC affiliate WITN of Greenville reported.

Dance said Paula Gribble summoned her son to their house on the afternoon of Jan. 10. In an interview Tuesday, she declined to say why, citing an ongoing investigation.

When T.D. Gribble found his mortally wounded parents and confronted Lever, he never drew his weapon, but kept his hand on his holstered gun and ordered the suspect to put his hands in the air while he called 911, his wife, Dana Gribble, told NBC News.

“He maintained composure and begged for the dispatcher to send a sheriff with lights and sirens,” said Dana Gribble, 51. “He said, ‘please send them fast.’”

After deputies arrived, Dance said, Lever was promptly taken into custody.

Tony Gribble, a Marine Corps veteran, and Paula Gribble, a retired nurse, were both found dead, the sheriff’s office said.

Reyes, a retired Eastern Carolina University biology professor, was also found dead. He had been fatally shot in the driveway of his home, Dance said.

In two other shootings, Lever is accused of opening fire at a gas station and a home in his neighborhood, Dance said. No one was injured in the shootings.

After Lever’s arrest, authorities discovered a cache of weapons and ammunition in his home and in the van he drove between the four scenes, Dance said.

Search warrants obtained Tuesday by WITN show that Lever allegedly confessed to T.D. Gribble, telling him at their home Friday that he killed his parents.

T.D. and Dana Gribble declined to discuss most details of the confrontation and the killings, and they declined to discuss a possible connection between their family and Lever. But the warrants show Lever worked as a real estate agent for the elder Gribbles after their move to Greenville, WITN reported.

State records show Lever was issued his license in 2004 and was a broker-in-charge at a Greenville real estate firm. As of Tuesday, his license remained active.

Efforts to reach someone at the company Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Dana Gribble recalled her mother-in-law as a Florence Nightingale-type nurse — “a caregiver through and through” who rose from nursing instructor to division chair during the nearly four decades she worked at Coastal Carolina Community College.

“There have been countless individuals in the health profession and beyond who have benefitted from Paula’s influence,” the school’s president said in a statement after her death. “Her commitment to her profession, her college community, and most certainly her students was, in my opinion, unsurpassed.”

Tony Gribble had been in a force reconnaissance unit in the Marine Corps and served seven tours in Vietnam, Dana Gribble said. He earned several commendations, including a Bronze Star for combat valor and multiple Purple Hearts.

After a series of injuries, T.D. Gribble said, his father had become frail in his old age.

But, he recalled of his parents, “they were exceptional people.”

“They were committed to their family. They were committed to their professions. They were committed to their church.”

Reyes retired in 2022 after working for 17 years as a professor of biology at Eastern Carolina University, a school spokesperson said. He lived on the same street as Lever — and less than half-mile away — though Dance said there was no known relationship between them.

He was found dead after returning home from a local grocery store, Dance said.

Colleagues at ECU recalled him as someone who made them feel like family, hosting sushi-eating competitions and taking them to new restaurants around Greenville, a former mentee of Reyes’, Michael Brewer, told WITN.

“He was living the life that he wanted to,” David Chalcraft, chair of the university’s biology department, told the station. “It’s just so sad.”