Authorities arrested Ziyaire Antonyo Spinks, 20, on Sunday in connection with a shooting that killed Peyton Izaia Patterson, 19, and wounded Alyssa Janae Ellerbee, 19, on Winston-Salem State University’s campus during homecoming weekend. Police charged Spinks with murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and felony possession of a firearm on an educational campus.
The arrest gives the campus violence a named suspect, but not a full explanation. Patterson died after officers and emergency medical services tried lifesaving measures, and Ellerbee was treated at a hospital and later released. Police said the fatal shooting happened at 9:46 p.m., while a separate shooting was reported on campus at 10:22 p.m., setting off a second response on the same night.
That timing mattered because Saturday was homecoming game day at Winston-Salem State University, with the WSSU Rams facing the Fayetteville State Broncos earlier in the day. Amir Henry said the campus was secured and said the celebration had been overshadowed by the loss of life and injuries from two separate shootings on the campus.
Yet investigators also drew a line between the two incidents. Police said the fatal shooting was an isolated incident and not connected to the later shooting, even though both unfolded on the same campus within minutes of each other. Officers found two people with gunshot wounds in the second shooting, and a vehicle tied to that case was later stopped by West Side police officers.
Jason Swaim said the fatal shooting stemmed from an altercation between two groups, but he did not spell out what set it off. He also said Spinks was not a student of Winston-Salem State University, and neither was Cequon Warren Brower, 18, who was arrested in connection with fighting. That leaves the core fact intact and the larger question open: what turned a campus argument into a homicide, and why did a second gunfire call follow so soon after on the same night? Police had made no arrests in the separate shooting by Sunday afternoon, while Spinks was being held without bond and court records showed two previous cases pending in North Carolina, including a Randolph County case from March and a Guilford County indictment filed Oct. 5.
