Something happened at attorney and Democratic state Sen. R.C. Soles’ Tabor City home on the evening of Aug. 23, 2009, but neither court testimony nor non-existent police reports have shed any light on exactly what. Now, one participant in the event has come forward to give his version to Carolina Journal.

On that Sunday afternoon, Kyle Blackburn told CJ, Soles shot him in the thigh as he was walking away from a bizarre confrontation at Soles’ secluded lakeside home. The confluence of events, Blackburn said, was set in motion by his friend, B.J. Wright, who insisted that the two go to the state senator’s house.

Both Blackburn and Wright were former legal clients of Soles. According to Blackburn, the men had been to Soles’ residence, a 4,000-square-foot home built in 1968 and which sits on a two-acre site adjoining a lake just outside the city limits, several other times.

“I turned around and was going to try and apologize and get everything straightened out because he [Soles] was very upset,” Blackburn said. “I said ‘Mr. Soles.’ He hollered, ‘Leave.’ He had the gun pointed at me. I picked up my hands and said. ‘Please don’t shoot me. I’m leaving.’ I made two steps the other way and he shot me.”

The bullet from Soles’ revolver passed through Blackburn’s upper right leg, just missing his femur. Wright took Blackburn to a hospital in South Carolina where he was treated and released the following day.

Blackburn told CJ he has spoken to several other media outlets about the shooting in recent weeks, but none has reported his account until now.

Attorney Scott Dorman says Blackburn is seeking monetary compensation from Soles, but would not say how much. Dorman said he is prepared to file a lawsuit against Soles if necessary. Neither Soles nor his attorney Joe Cheshire returned phone calls from CJ seeking comment or an alternate version of events.

After an investigation by a special prosecutor from N. C. Attorney General Roy Cooper’s Department of Justice, a Columbus County grand jury indicted the 75-year-old Soles in January on a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. Soles claimed he was acting in self-defense because Blackburn, 22, and Wright, 23, tried to kick in the door to his house and would not leave the premises.

In February, prosecutors worked out a plea agreement with Soles. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, paid $1,000 in court costs, and was free to return to his law practice and his seat in the General Assembly. Following his plea agreement, Soles told reporters he did not call 911 but instead called the Tabor City police chief on a personal telephone number.

Soles is the longest-serving member of the General Assembly. He first was elected in 1968 and is the chair of the Democratic Caucus. He has announced he will not seek re-election but plans to serve the remainder of the current term.

Blackburn’s account

Here is how Blackburn describes the events:

On Aug. 23, at around 1 p.m., Wright came to him “begging me to drive him over to Mr. Soles’ house.” Wright didn’t have a driver’s license and Blackburn said he agreed to take him over to Soles’ house. They drove a Chevy Tahoe owned by Wright.

On the way, they stopped and picked up a 12-pack of beer, even though Blackburn already had consumed several beers that day. Blackburn’s girlfriend Jessica Nealey joined them for the ride. When they arrived at Soles’ house, they knocked on the front door and then the back door. Wright declared that Soles must not be home, so they decided to wait on the pier behind the house for him to return. They had been on the pier for almost an hour, drinking the beer, when they noticed Soles looking out a window.

“We walked over to the back door and knocked on the door. Mr. Soles didn’t come to the door,” he said. Then they went to the front door and started “beating and hollering,” but Soles still wouldn’t come to the door.

Wright said he knew how to get Soles to come out. They went to the Tahoe, which they had parked outside the gate to Soles’ driveway, opened the gate, got in the vehicle, and drove closer to the house. Then Blackburn and Wright got out and banged on the door again. They returned to the vehicle and with Wright behind the wheel, pulled up on the grass and started spinning tires and driving in circles, tearing up the grass.

Wright eventually drove back to the gate. Wright told them Soles would talk to them now, and the two went to the front door, leaving Nealey at the gate. After some more banging and kicking on the front door, Soles, who was holding a revolver, cracked open the door, and fired a shot in the air. Then Soles came out of the house and chased Wright into the yard, trying to hit him with the gun.

Wright ran around the circular drive in one direction, and Blackburn ran the other way. Wright then returned to the vehicle. Soles quit his pursuit of Wright and headed back to the house. He encountered Blackburn on the way, and, after Blackburn begged him not to shoot, Soles shot him in the thigh as he was leaving to head back to the car. About a minute had elapsed between the time Soles shot into the air and then fired a second shot, which hit Blackburn in the leg.

Soles went into the house and came back to the door holding a phone in one hand and the gun in the other. Wright took off his shirt, attempted to wrap Blackburn’s wound, and then drove him to a hospital in Loris, S.C.

Shooting details hard to come by

Soles has said little publicly about the details of the shooting. Tabor City Police Chief Donald Dowless confirmed to CJ that he received a call from Soles after the shooting occurred. And while Soles’ home lies outside the city limits, Dowless said the location was close enough that his department had some jurisdiction over the events that occurred there.

However, on this occasion, Dowless said, he decided also to call the State Bureau of Investigation, an agency within the Department of Justice. He contacted SBI agent Mack Warner, who lived in nearby Brunswick County. Dowless said Warner arrived at the Soles home about 40 minutes after the call.

In addition, Dowless went to the Soles home and met Columbus County Sheriff’s Department deputies, who also had responded. Dowless said both he and the sheriff’s department let the SBI handle any investigation and reports. He said there is no Tabor City police report on the shooting and the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CJ that it didn’t have a report, either.

Department of Justice spokesperson Noelle Talley has told CJ that information from an SBI criminal investigation is not a public record. She did confirm that the SBI continues to investigate allegations made by Stacy Scott, another former Soles legal client, that the senator had sexually molested Scott when he was 15. Scott later changed his story and said that his allegations, which aired on a Wilmington TV station, were not true.

Don Carrington is executive editor of Carolina Journal.