Murder Suspect Dies by Self-Inflicted Gunshot After Buncombe County Homicide Charge

Christopher Robin Rogers, 61, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his friend Marco Loretto on the same day he barricaded himself inside a camper at 852 North Turkey Creek Road in Leicester, North Carolina. When members of the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office Special Response Team made entry, they found Rogers dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The case began publicly on Feb. 24, when a friend reported Loretto missing after not seeing or hearing from him in nearly a week. Loretto's listed residential address was on Elk Mountain Scenic Highway in North Asheville, and investigators quickly found something wrong at that property: Christopher Robin Rogers had moved in and was driving Loretto's car. When questioned, Rogers claimed he hadn't seen Loretto in weeks.

What investigators already knew made that claim land harder. On Feb. 6, nearly three weeks before the missing-person report, Loretto had contacted the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office himself, asking how to evict Rogers. Sheriff Quentin E. Miller said Loretto expressed fear and apprehension about his friend during that call.

On March 4, the BCSO Criminal Investigations Division searched the property. Around 11:15 a.m., human remains were found near Elk Mountain Scenic Highway. The North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later positively identified those remains as Marco Loretto, 61. A preliminary autopsy showed he died from a gunshot wound to the head. The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office classified the death as the county's first homicide of 2026.

Two days later, on Friday, March 6, the Criminal Investigations Division charged Rogers with second-degree murder. Deputies moved to arrest him and located him at the camper on North Turkey Creek Road. Rogers refused to comply with commands to come out. BCSO deployed both its Special Response Team and Crisis Negotiation Team to respond to the armed, barricaded subject. As SRT members made entry, they found Rogers deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He never faced a courtroom.

BCSO District 2 Captain Chris Stockton addressed the investigation publicly: "This diligent investigation led to the discovery of Mr. Loretto's remains along with other physical evidence that told the story of how he died. The hard work of our Patrol Deputies, Detectives, Crime Scene Investigators, I.G.R.A.N.T., SRT, and Crisis Negotiation Team all played a pivotal role in the criminal charges and apprehension of the offender." Stockton also thanked the Reems Creek Fire Department, Asheville Police Department, and Weaverville Police Department for their assistance.

"We remain committed to giving a voice to victims of violent crimes in Buncombe County," Stockton said.

The Loretto case was not the only violent death in the region that week. The Asheville Police Department was separately investigating the deaths of Eric Lee Anderson Lordman Jr., 27, found dead from multiple gunshot wounds on Granada Street at 12:20 a.m. on March 7, and William Wyatt Adair, 20, found dead on Patton Avenue at 1:04 a.m. on March 9. Neither case is connected to the BCSO investigation.

For Loretto, the timeline is a grim one: a frightened man called a sheriff's office in early February asking how to remove someone from his property, reported missing three weeks later, found dead two weeks after that. The friend he feared never answered for it in court.