North Carolina Woman Killed by Rock Thrown into Windshield, Suspects on the Loose

A 23-year-old woman was killed while driving on a North Carolina road when someone hurled a rock through her windshield, causing her to crash into a nearby house.

Brittany Elizabeth Ferguson was driving on Conley Road in Burke County when the rock smashed into her car and fatally struck her in the head, WRAL reported, citing information from the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

Ferguson’s sedan then swerved off the road and slammed into the porch of Abigail Rumlet, who recalled the traumatizing ordeal to the local outlet. 

Rumlet was on her way home from church that night when she was alerted to the terrifying sight at her home, where Ferguson’s body was still in her 2006 Ford Taurus. 

“Bad. It was just horrible,” Rumlet said. 

“The house can be replaced or repaired … Just closure. That’s what I want for the family,” she added.

The victim, who lived in Morganton, was reportedly on her way to visit her sister when she was senselessly killed.

“I hope that whoever did this act will come forward. And man up to what’s happened here, because it’s just an awful tragedy,” Rumlet said.

Signs placed by Ferguson’s family on Conley Road are begging the public for help in identifying the suspect or suspects, who police believe to have been driving in a white Chevrolet S-10 single-cab truck. 

Witnesses told police that they spotted the truck with a man riding in the bed in the area following the incident, the New York Post reported.

Ferguson’s tragic death comes just days after two young Colorado men pleaded guilty to their roles in the similar rock-throwing killing of Alexa Bartell in April 2023. 

Zachary Kwak, 19, took a plea deal last week for first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and criminal attempt to commit assault, and faces up to 32 years in prison, prosecutors said. 

After Kwak’s plea, Nicholas Karol-Chik, also 19, pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder, criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder, as well as a crime of violence sentence-enhancer, the Denver Post reported.

A third 19-year-old, Joseph Koenig — the one who is suspected of throwing the fatal rock at Bartell — has pleaded not-guilty to his first-degree murder charges and is scheduled to stand trial in July.