Terry McMillian Jr.’s Home Depot Shoving Death Case: Guilty Plea

Terry McMillian Jr. pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and common-law robbery on May 22, 2025, for shoving 82-year-old Home Depot employee Gary Rasor during a shoplifting attempt in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Rasor died six weeks after the fall, and McMillian was sentenced to 97 to 129 months in prison. The Home Depot shoving death case against him ended with that plea while a jury was still deliberating on a first-degree murder charge.¹

What Happened at the Hillsborough Home Depot

On October 18, 2022, McMillian walked into the Home Depot in the Hampton Pointe shopping center and tried to leave the garden center with pressure washers. Arrest warrants put the value of the merchandise at $837.² Gary Rasor, an 82-year-old store employee, tried to stop him. Surveillance video captured McMillian shoving Rasor to the concrete floor and walking out.³

Rasor suffered a fractured pelvis and a fractured rib. He was hospitalized, moved to a rehabilitation facility, and at first appeared to be recovering. His son Jeff later testified that in rehab his father could not walk or get out of bed but seemed in good spirits. Within weeks Rasor’s condition fell apart. Back in the hospital, doctors found a complete blood vessel blockage and signs of a heart attack. He lost weight and needed supplemental oxygen.⁴ He died on November 30, 2022, at age 83.⁵

The North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide, with the cause listed as complications of blunt force pelvic injury and hypertension and pulmonary emphysema as contributing conditions.

Rasor had worked at the store for more than two years.⁶ His son said he kept working past 80 because he enjoyed training younger employees and talking with customers, and that before the assault he climbed stairs and played with his grandchildren without difficulty.⁵

How Police Identified and Arrested McMillian

McMillian was not identified right away. Hillsborough police released the surveillance footage publicly, and the investigation stretched for months. The break came from Diamond Brown, McMillian’s former girlfriend. During arguments, she had recorded him on her phone discussing the incident. In one video she confronted him about “killing a man” rather than supporting his children and told him she was recording. On a separate call McMillian said, “All I did was push him down. I ain’t going to get no murder charge.”⁷ Brown gave the tip that led police to him and later claimed a $10,000 reward.

On January 24, 2023, Hillsborough police arrested Terry McAnthony McMillian Jr., then 26, in Durham without incident. He was charged with first-degree murder and robbery and held without bond in the Orange County Jail.⁸

The Trial and the Cause-of-Death Fight

The murder trial opened in May 2025 in Orange County Superior Court, with Special Superior Court Judge Clayton Somers presiding. District Attorney Jeff Nieman prosecuted; Kellie Mannette and Kailey Morgan represented McMillian.⁹

The state’s case rested on the surveillance video, Jeff Rasor’s testimony about his father’s health before and after the fall, Brown’s recordings, and the medical examiner’s homicide finding. Getting Brown to testify was difficult enough that Judge Somers ordered her fitted with a GPS monitor to make sure she appeared.⁷

The central contested issue was whether the shove had actually caused Rasor’s death. Dr. Nabila Haikal, a forensic pathologist with 37 years of experience, testified that the cause was complications of blunt force pelvic injury. She acknowledged Rasor’s pre-existing conditions but said the fall worsened them, and that without the push he could have kept working “several more months, possibly years.”¹⁰

The defense attacked that finding. Mannette argued the medical examiner’s report came out of a COVID-era backlog, that Haikal’s notes “missed important and critical things,” and that the final report “got things demonstrably wrong.”⁷ Morgan argued Haikal spoke in “generalities,” was “swayed by law enforcement’s assertion that it was a homicide,” and could not rule out that Rasor would have had a heart attack even without the injury. The defense cited a Duke physician who attributed Rasor’s death to lung disease.³ A motion to strike Haikal’s testimony was denied.

Beyond the medical dispute, the defense argued the shove was not murder. Mannette called the push “reactional, not intentional,” the response of someone startled by being grabbed. Morgan told jurors in closing that the video was “the video of a crime” and “the video of an assault,” but “not the video of a murder.”¹⁰ The defense also noted the absence of fingerprint or DNA evidence tying McMillian to the scene and the fact that Rasor was never interviewed after the incident. The defense called no witnesses, and McMillian did not testify. His family later said he feared his words would be “turned against him.”¹¹

Why the Case Ended in a Plea

The jury began deliberating the afternoon of Tuesday, May 20, 2025. Over two days jurors asked to review the surveillance footage, medical records from Duke Hospital and Hillcrest Convalescent Center, and the recordings McMillian had made with Brown.¹²

On the morning of Thursday, May 22, with the jury still out, McMillian accepted a plea. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and common-law robbery, the robbery charge consolidated into the manslaughter charge. Voluntary manslaughter had not been among the options given to the jury, which was weighing first-degree murder.¹

District Attorney Nieman said a first-degree murder conviction would have carried a mandatory sentence of life without parole, and the Rasor family had not been comfortable with that outcome. “As the jury was deliberating, I think it caused us to realize there was a lot at stake,” he said.³ Mannette said McMillian took the deal to “get back to his children as soon as possible,” telling the court he had two children with two different women, helped care for a third child, and had been struggling to support both households despite working full-time.¹ McMillian did not speak during the proceedings. His family said he had regretted what happened every day since and “didn’t mean to harm Rasor.”¹¹

Sentence and Family Statements

Under North Carolina’s structured sentencing system, voluntary manslaughter is a Class D felony.¹³ Judge Somers imposed a sentence of 97 to 129 months, roughly eight to nearly eleven years. McMillian has been incarcerated since early 2023 and has already served part of that term. No appeals have been reported.¹

Three members of the Rasor family spoke at the hearing. Jeff Rasor told the court, “You heard a lot about my dad and how he stepped up. He was a good father, and we all miss him. One of the best things about him is his forgiving quality.” He then addressed McMillian directly: “Our sincere hope, and my father’s sincere hope would be, that Mr. McMillian uses this time if there’s any way possible, rehabilitate, reskill, whatever is available in that time, that he may come out and be a productive citizen of this country and re-engage with his family.”¹⁴ Another family member said, “This has affected us, so much trauma. We lost a loving caring, forgiving man, who we loved.”³

1
ABC7 Chicago. Home Depot Death: Terry McMillian Jr. Accepts Plea Deal
2
WRAL. Arrest in Home Depot Employee Death in Hillsborough
3
WRAL. Guilty Plea in Trial for Home Depot Killing in Hillsborough
4
ABC11. Testimony Underway in Trial of Man Charged With Shoving Orange County Home Depot Worker
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The News & Observer. Home Depot Worker Death Trial in Orange County
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ABC News. Son of Home Depot Worker Fatally Attacked During Theft Seeks Answers
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The News & Observer. Trial Testimony in Home Depot Worker Death Case
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WYFF4. Home Depot Employee Death in North Carolina
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ABC11. Plea Deal Reached in Home Depot Death Trial
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ABC11. Home Depot Murder Trial of Terry McMillian Jr.
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The News & Observer. McMillian Plea Deal in Home Depot Death Case
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CBS 17. Hillsborough Home Depot Murder Jury Continues Second Day of Deliberations
13
North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes, Chapter 14, Article 6
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6ABC. Home Depot Death: Terry McMillian Jr. Accepts Plea Deal