A man has been sentenced to a minimum of 94 months in prison for his role in the 2021 homicide of Edward Geouge III.
Rene Oscar Gomez Jr., was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter as part of a plea agreement with the Rowan County District Attorney’s Office, according to a release from the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation into the killing of Geouge began in June of 2021, when the N.C. State Highway Patrol was called to investigate a single-vehicle crash in the 1000 block of Saw Road, which Geouge had died in.
Detectives with the sheriff’s office were contacted by the investigating troopers the following day when it was found that Geouge was killed not by the crash, but by a gunshot wound. Initially, Geouge’s death was ruled to have been a result of the crash and it was not a homicide, but a funeral home worker found a bullet hole in his body a day later and the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office were contacted by the investigating troopers to begin investigating.
The medical examiner who did not believe the hole was a bullet wound was fired after an internal investigation, according to previous Salisbury Post reporting.
Judge Anna Mills Wagoner sentenced Gomez to a minimum of 94 months and a maximum of 125 months in the Department of Adult Correction.
