Kriti Mehrotra
When 61-year-old Quinten Crawford was found heinously murdered on the evening of June 10, 2020, it left his community and the state of North Carolina devastated. That’s because, as explored in Investigation Discovery’s ‘Evil Lives Here: My Love Put a Gun to My Head,’ like many such homicide cases, his death was completely senseless. Thankfully, though, with the help of eyewitness statements, physical evidence, as well as his past troubles, it didn’t take long for authorities to identify, arrest, convict, and sentence the perpetrator.
Quinten Crawford Was Killed in His Own Vehicle
Although a proud native of Washington, DC, Quinten Crawford was happily settled in the wondrous city of Raleigh in North Carolina when the rug was pulled out from underneath his feet. The HD Woodson graduate was actually not only a Master Barber/Stylist at A Cut Above, who also loved remodeling old cars, but he was also a family man through and through. In fact, he had been married to his loving wife, Traci Crawford, for almost 26 years, and they shared 3 beautiful daughters – Hailey, Kristin, and Dreamer – as well as 5 adorable grandkids.
However, everything changed for the family on the evening of June 10, 2020, after Dreamer called her father for some help. She sounded panicked, so of course, Quinten rushed out the door. He was actually having some Chinese food as dinner with his wife, but he put his utensils down as soon as the call came in and drove to NC State University’s Centennial campus to pick her up. Little did either of them know that mere minutes after they would reunite, the 61-year-old would be heinously shot to death in his SUV. This was just before 6:30 pm, and he was shot multiple times with an AR-15 rifle.
Quinten Crawford’s Killer Was Immediately Identified as Someone He Knew
While it’s true that both the city and the university police responded almost instantly after the gunshots rang out, it was sadly already too late – Quinten was pronounced dead at the scene. They then questioned Dreamer, who had been in the passenger side of her father’s vehicle but was fortunately unharmed, and she told them about Theodore “Teddy” James Lee Jr., her boyfriend. This 23-year-old local somehow hadn’t left the area of the brutal incident, so he was immediately taken into custody from along the 1200 block of Main Campus Drive with an official arrest on one count of first-degree murder.
According to court documents, neither Dreamer nor Teddy attended North Carolina State University in the summer of 2020, but he still lived in an apartment on the Centennial Campus. On that fateful evening, the couple had reportedly gotten into an argument, so she decided to walk away before calling her father to come pick her up, which he didn’t hesitate to do due to their past. It turns out there was an extensive alleged history of domestic violence between the duo, who had been together for 6 years, which also included Teddy reportedly threatening to kill her if the relationship ended.
This was to such an extent that Quinten was vocal about wanting this union to be over and had even bought a weapon to protect his family, which he took with him to pick up his little girl. Teddy was driving around looking for Dreamer too, but she was already in the car with her father when he found them. So, as per witness statements, he took a drastic U-turn and hit the SUV from behind. Then, he raced in front of the car to block them, got out, pulled a rifle from his trunk, and shot over 15 times. In between this, Dreamer had jumped out to try and stop her boyfriend, but to no avail. Her efforts resulted in her survival, but her kind, caring, and supportive 61-year-old father was murdered in a truly tragic manner.
Theodore James Lee Jr. is Currently Serving His Sentence in North Carolina
Theodore, AKA Teddy, initially tried to claim self-defense, asserting he had opened fire after seeing Quinten with his weapon, but it didn’t hold in court owing to the evidence available. Thus, on January 9, 2023, he pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder, for which he was handed down a sentence of 28¾ years to 35½ years in prison on January 13. During his sentencing, the judge told the convict, “You didn’t have to hit the car. You didn’t have to shoot this man. You didn’t have to do any of this. You did this because you wanted to do this. What you did was wrong.” Today, at the age of 28, Teddy remains incarcerated at the close-security Bertie Correctional Institution in Windsor, North Carolina, where he is expected to remain until at least February 2049, when he becomes eligible for parole.
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