Office of District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch release
There are crimes so cruel and senseless that they echo within a community for years – sometimes, decades – after the fact. In Macon County, father-of-three Derold Garry Ledford’s shooting death ranks among such crimes.
Next week, Ledford’s murderer, Scott Keith Quillen, 51, sentenced to life in prison, walks out a free man.
Scott Keith Quillen
“I cannot fathom why the parole commission believes this decision is acceptable,” District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch said. “Scott Quillen has no business being out of prison after committing a violent home invasion and murder. He is a continuing threat to the community.
Our office, and this includes my predecessors, have fought for years to keep Quillen in prison. Family members also wrote numerous letters in protest to parole commissioners and newspapers, as well as testifying in person at hearings held in Raleigh. It now appears that we and the Ledford family have lost the battle.”
After nailing down on Wednesday the parole commission’s planned release of the convicted murderer, the District Attorney’s Office called and notified the victim’s family.
“We didn’t want a family member to just randomly find out or, even worse, spot him without prior warning,” DA Welch said.
In 2013, a Macon County investigator saw Quillen at a Franklin gasoline station – he was being allowed weekend visits home, as part of a N.C. Department of Adult Corrections program called “Home Leave.” There was no prior notice to prosecutors or victim family members.
The subsequent outcry about Quillen helped convince the state to eliminate the program, which was benefiting about 148 other prisoners in addition to Quillen.
On Oct. 21, 1991, at about 3 a.m., Quillen forced his way through a window into Ledford’s house in an attempted robbery. The then 18-year-old shot Ledford twice in his bedroom and twice in a hallway.
There were no other family members in the home at the time.
Quillen pleaded guilty to second-degree murder rather than face trial for first-degree murder.
He initially claimed another man pulled the trigger; however, Quillen refused to testify unless the state struck a favorable bargain.
State prosecutors refused. Then District Attorney Charles Hipps told reporters he was satisfied that Quillen had pulled the trigger in Ledford’s “vicious, execution-style” killing.
Though a teen, Quillen had amassed a lengthy criminal record that included drug and larceny criminal charges.
For his part, Ledford was a respected community member in Macon County and beyond. Ledford worked as a state Agriculture Department plant inspector, partnering with growers and nursery owners across the state’s seven westernmost counties.
“Mr. Quillen will be released on Feb. 3, 2025, provided he has completed his MAPP (Mutual Agreement Parole Program, designed to prepare selected prisoners for release),” Darrin Jackson, chair of the N.C. Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission, wrote in an email to DA Welch.
“The last couple of weeks his file has been circulating our office to obtain the final signatures for his release,” Jackson wrote. “A condition that he avoid Macon County was added.
“Technically, he will not be released until three Commissioners approve. As of today (Wednesday), two Commissioners have approved, and the file is now waiting a third Commissioner’s vote.
“Although I cannot say right now the exact day of Mr. Quillen’s release, I do imagine it will get the final sign off from our office in the very near future.”
Welch said she had hoped the Commission would reconsider its decision.
“This is a prime example why the public sometimes has no faith in the justice system. I am disgusted and heartbroken for this family and the citizens of North Carolina.”
