05 April 2026 :
April 3, 2026 - North Carolina. Branson Raye Lambert Sentenced to Death
A Randolph County jury has convicted Branson Raye Lambert, 26, White, of 1st-degree murder and unanimously sentenced him to death for the 2021 killing of Dillion Zayne Wirt, 23. A judge accepted the recommendation and handed down the formal sentence.
According to court documents, on February 7, 2021, police responded to a shooting in Asheboro. Evidence and witness accounts led them to investigate the crime as a homicide, though no body was initially found. Police later recovered Wirt’s body at a former rock quarry in Moore County. An autopsy confirmed he had been shot. Lambert was arrested the same day at a gas station in Virginia and charged with Wirt’s murder. According to court documents, Lambert feared that Wirt would report him for a robbery committed a few hours earlier.
