911 calls describe chaotic scene after murder-suicide

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — We are learning more tonight about Friday’s shooting at a Monkey Junction gas station as the 911 calls are released.

The shooter, another man and an unborn child all died. The child’s mother remains in critical condition.

A dozen 911 calls in less than a minute came in after the shooting that investigators say was likely the result of a business deal gone bad. Some of them are so graphic that we will not share them.

It all happened Friday around 4 p.m. at the Murphy USA gas station on Carolina Beach Road.

Investigators say Richard Nielsen shot Russell Mitchell and his pregnant sister-in-law Jessica Modolo right before shooting and killing himself. The district attorney says it came after a dispute over lawn equipment reported a day earlier.

The 911 calls lay out the series of events that all happened within one minute.

“I see the guy, an elderly man run over to a white pick-up style thing, and I hear the shots,” a woman told an operator. “Then he walked away from the truck, like a few people in the truck. He puts the gun to his head, and that’s it. Then he rolled down that little ravine they got here.”

“They’re shot, man. I don’t know. Somebody is still over there with a pistol,” a man who called 911 said leading the operator to ask where that person was. “I don’t know, man. I’m sitting back behind a car hiding, man.”

“Yeah, there are some little kids,” another man said. “You’re going to have get somebody here for the children.”

The DA says because Nielsen committed suicide, it is unlikely investigators will ever have a true motive. Modolo is still listed in critical condition. Family members told WWAY in a voicemail Sunday that while many people ran from the scene of the shooting, there were several people who ran toward it and tried to help and they should be recognized.