Jury set to deliberate over murder charges in apparent Fayetteville road rage incident

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- The jury presiding over the Roger Nobles trial will begin deliberations Wednesday.

Nobles is facing first-degree and second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of 32-year-old motorcyclist Stephen Addison in 2022.

Police say Addison was killed in January 2022 after he got into an apparent road-rage dispute with Nobles at Skibo Road and Cliffdale Road in Fayetteville.

The jury was supposed to begin deliberations Tuesday morning, but that was disrupted when an audio recording was submitted to the judge.

The audio purportedly captured two jurors illegally discussing the case. Those discussions are mandated by the court to be held inside the jury room once the trial is completed. Ultimately, the judge decided the audio was too garbled to specify what was said in the recording and those two jurors were kicked off the jury.

During the closing arguments, the district attorney's office argued that Nobles intentionally and maliciously fired his gun at Addison during the incident.

The defense argued that Nobles didn't have a motive to kill Addison and thought his safety was on. The defense also said Nobles was too scared of hitting his son who was also involved in the argument with Addison to purposefully pull the trigger.

Addison's best friend told ABC11 that Addison, a father of five, and his wife had plans of moving to New York just days after he was killed.