Survivor recounts deadly Asheville shooting: 'I think about it every day'

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — The night Dajonna Boyd was shot began at her aunt's house. She was with family, having drinks and hanging out the way they had many times before. Eventually, they decided to head to a bar just down the street on Biltmore Avenue. "We were hanging out, enjoying ourselves," she recalls. "It was just like, boom," Boyd said. Boyd remembers seeing a car and what she described as fire coming from a gun. She started running. "Then I almost got away, and then I just fell," Boyd said. "I just collapsed." On the ground, Boyd could see her thigh swelling.

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Scoop News DeskAsheville, North Carolina · Published Friday, September 4, 2026 at 9:01 PM UTCUpdated Saturday, September 5, 2026 at 11:08 PM UTC

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Marques Davis, 24, and Lamarius Jones, 22, were two men she had known nearly her entire life. "I didn't consider them my friends," Boyd said. "I consider them my brothers." At the hospital, Boyd learned just how badly the gunfire had damaged her leg. "They told me that I shattered my knee and my femur bone – like it completely cracked in half and shattered," Boyd said. "They had to put a metal rod from my hip to my knee, and I have about, like, five or six screws, and I'm gonna have to have [them] for the rest of my life." MENTOR URGES EMPATHY IN AFTERMATH OF DEADLY ASHEVILLE SHOOTING THAT KILLED 2 YOUNG MEN Boyd spent days in the hospital and had two surgeries.

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