A judge denied bond for Sgt. Nekime Matu Oxendine, who faces first-degree murder in the March death of Capt. Adam Bean.

HOPE MILLS, N.C. — A North Carolina State Highway Patrol sergeant accused of fatally shooting an off-duty sheriff’s captain outside a Hope Mills home is claiming he acted in self-defense, a position a judge considered before ordering the trooper to remain jailed without bond on a first-degree murder charge.

Sgt. Nekime Matu Oxendine, 44, is charged in the March 27 death of Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Adam Bean, 42. Court records made public after Oxendine’s September arrest show that Superior Court Judge James Floyd Ammons Jr. reviewed affidavits supporting Oxendine’s self-defense claim but declined to release him while the case proceeds. The order also says prosecutors do not intend to seek the death penalty. Oxendine’s next scheduled court appearance is Nov. 4. The charge remains an allegation, and the evidence that ultimately will be presented at trial has not yet been tested before a jury.

The shooting grew out of a late-night confrontation at a home on Seattle Slew Lane, according to search warrants and subsequent court filings. Bean and Oxendine were both off duty. The woman who lived at the home had been in long-term relationships with both men at different times, investigators said. She had lived with Bean before moving out in December 2025 and later renewing her relationship with Oxendine. Records reviewed during the bond proceedings described the relationships among the three as longstanding and complicated, circumstances the judge said were unusual in part because all three had ties to law enforcement.

Investigators said Bean contacted the woman on March 27 seeking to talk with her. She initially considered meeting him but later said she was staying in for the night, according to search-warrant accounts. Bean nevertheless drove to the residence shortly before 11 p.m. The woman told investigators that he became upset after seeing Oxendine’s vehicle there and questioned why the trooper was at her home. She eventually went outside, and the encounter moved from the vehicles and residence into the front yard. What happened during those moments is now central to the prosecution and Oxendine’s defense.

According to the woman’s account contained in warrants, Bean got out of his vehicle and advanced toward Oxendine after the trooper came outside with a handgun. She told investigators Oxendine fired shots into the ground before firing several more rounds as Bean continued toward him. Bean fell in the yard. When Cumberland County deputies arrived after a 10:53 p.m. shooting call, they found the woman attempting CPR. Bean was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators recovered a handgun and later sought access to phones, vehicles and other evidence as the State Bureau of Investigation took over the homicide inquiry.

The self-defense claim did not become part of the public account until after Oxendine was indicted. Ammons’ bond order indicates that both Oxendine and the woman submitted affidavits that supported the defense argument. The judge weighed that material along with Oxendine’s ties to the community, his lengthy Highway Patrol career, the absence of a prior criminal record noted in the order and possible conditions that could have been imposed if he were released. Those considerations did not persuade the court to set a bond on the first-degree murder charge.

The judge also focused on the professional backgrounds of the people involved. Oxendine had served with the Highway Patrol for about 18 years, while Bean had spent nearly two decades with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Court records noted that the law enforcement officers involved had received training in areas such as conflict intervention, physical confrontation, use of force and self-defense. Ammons nevertheless had to evaluate the case under the same standards applied to another defendant accused of an intentional killing. His order left Oxendine in custody while making no finding of guilt.

The homicide investigation took more than five months to produce a criminal charge. In the days after Bean’s death, the sheriff’s office publicly described the shooting as an off-duty domestic dispute and said it did not appear to present a continuing threat to the public. Search warrants released later provided the first detailed account tying Oxendine to the gunfire. Those records described the witness statement, the relationships among the three people and investigators’ efforts to examine electronic communications that could show what happened before the confrontation.

Text messages cited in investigative records showed that the relationships had generated tension well before March. Investigators said Oxendine had expressed concern about the woman’s past relationship with Bean and whether Bean remained important to her. Bean, during his own relationship with the woman, had also discussed Oxendine’s continued presence in their lives. In the weeks before the shooting, the records say, Oxendine again raised concerns about Bean. The messages may provide context for prosecutors, but they do not by themselves establish what Oxendine believed when the fatal confrontation occurred or whether the shooting was legally justified.

After completing the main portion of its investigation, the State Bureau of Investigation sent its findings to a special prosecutor with the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. Court records show that a grand jury reviewed the investigation in August and directed prosecutors to pursue a first-degree murder case. A second grand jury later returned the indictment, and Oxendine was arrested in September. A grand-jury indictment establishes that the required threshold for a criminal charge has been met; it is not a determination that the defendant committed the crime.

Oxendine was placed on administrative duty after the shooting and remained there after he was charged. The State Highway Patrol has said its own internal investigation is continuing separately from the criminal case. The agency said after the indictment that it respects the judicial process and described the case as difficult and tragic for those involved. The patrol has not publicly announced a final administrative finding. Oxendine’s attorney has defended his record and has said the trooper acted within his legal rights, an assertion prosecutors will be able to challenge as the case moves forward.

Bean’s death also left a nearly 20-year career at the sheriff’s office unfinished. Cumberland County officials said he had dedicated his career to public safety, and the sheriff’s office later recognized him with a Merit Award for work that included efforts to modernize an employee career-development and pay plan. Other reporting on his background said Bean had served in the Army and deployed to Iraq before joining the sheriff’s office in 2006. Those accomplishments are separate from the disputed circumstances surrounding his death, which remain the subject of the pending murder prosecution.

The record now places two sharply different legal interpretations over the same brief encounter. Prosecutors secured an indictment accusing Oxendine of first-degree murder, while the defense says the shooting was an act of self-protection after Bean advanced toward him. The bond judge considered the self-defense evidence but did not resolve that dispute, instead deciding that Oxendine should remain jailed. Questions about the precise sequence of shots, the significance of the men’s prior communications and the legal reasonableness of Oxendine’s use of deadly force remain matters for the criminal case.

Oxendine remains charged with first-degree murder and held without bond, with his next court appearance scheduled for Nov. 4. Prosecutors have said through the bond order that they will not seek the death penalty. No trial date has been publicly established in the material reviewed, and no jury has determined whether Oxendine’s self-defense claim defeats the murder accusation.

Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.