Jury Convicts Man of Murder, Malicious Wounding from 2023 Lindenwood Convenience Store Shooting
NORFOLK, Va. — A jury convicted Bruce Gordon Hisle, 42, on Thursday of shooting and killing 84-year-old convenience store clerk James Robert Carter and maliciously wounding another man outside the store while in the process of shooting at someone else with whom Mr. Hisle was arguing in December 2023. The cooperation of witnesses who were outside the store that night allowed Norfolk Police to quickly detain three suspects: Mr. Hisle, the mother of his children Tamika Credle, and Mr. Hisle’s older brother Dennis Curtis Hisle Jr. All three individuals have been convicted of their roles in this crime.
Police investigators initially identified Dennis Hisle as the gunman and secured warrants against him for murder, malicious wounding, and other related charges. Ms. Credle, who drove the brothers away from the store immediately after the shooting, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. As the investigation developed in late 2024, police identified Bruce Hisle as the actual shooter. Accordingly, the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office secured indictments against Mr. Hisle from a grand jury for having committed the shooting and withdrew the shooting-related charges against his brother. Mr. Hisle pleaded not guilty and requested a jury trial, which began on July 29, 2025.
At Mr. Hisle’s trial, witnesses and the surviving gunshot victim testified to having been outside the Triple-C convenience store on Lindenwood Avenue between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2023, the night of the shooting. Both Hisle brothers were across the street from the store at that time selling liquor out of the back of their van while Ms. Credle sat inside the van in the driver’s seat.
The surviving victim and his friend each interacted with the Hisle brothers from across the street. The friend, who was drunk, challenged Mr. Hisle as to why he was wearing a long trench coat and insinuated that Mr. Hisle was concealing guns underneath it. The surviving victim could see that Mr. Hisle was getting upset, and he crossed the street to try to diffuse the situation. While having a friendly interaction with Dennis Hisle at the back of the van, the surviving victim saw that Mr. Hisle — who by then had walked toward the front of the van — and his friend were still arguing. The surviving victim testified to feeling that trouble was imminent at that point and that he walked back across the street toward his friend. In the meantime, Mr. Carter walked to the front door of the store and told the men outside to move their dispute elsewhere.
After walking across the street and while his back was still turned, the surviving victim heard gunshots ring out and was hit by a bullet near his rib, causing him to spin around and fall to the ground. Mr. Carter was fatally hit by two bullets in his torso and face, and he fell inside the store. All witnesses who were present outside the store testified to having seen the gunfire coming from the front end of the van where Mr. Hisle had been standing. The surviving victim was able to drive himself home after the gunfire stopped and seek medical attention. Mr. Carter was transported to the hospital, and he was pronounced dead around 8:30 p.m.
After the shooting, the brothers quickly got into the van, and Mr. Hisle told Ms. Credle to drive them away, putting a 10mm handgun in the front passenger seat glovebox while Dennis Hisle sat in the back seat. One witness followed the van in his car long enough to take down the van’s license plate and report it to police. About 20 minutes after receiving the van’s information, police located it a few miles away from the convenience store and arrested the three occupants. Officers searched the vehicle and found the handgun as well as a box of matching ammunition in the glovebox. That ammunition appeared to match 11 spent bullet casings that investigators collected from the scene of the shooting. During Mr. Carter’s autopsy, the medical examiner recovered a bullet from his body that also appeared to match the ammunition from the glovebox. Subsequent forensic tests confirmed that the 10mm handgun was used in the shooting, that it fired the bullet recovered from Mr. Carter’s body, and that the shell casings from the scene were ejected from the same gun.
During their investigation of Dennis Hisle, police identified the 10mm handgun from the van as stolen after looking up the gun’s serial number. The owner of the gun — who was acquainted with Dennie Hisle and had last seen his gun the last time he hung out with him — had reported it stolen in September 2023, just months before the fatal shooting. Furthermore, Dennis Hisle was previously convicted of a felony in another state. Following those developments, police secured warrants against Dennis Hisle for larceny of a firearm and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Dennis Hisle entered an agreement to plead guilty to his firearm-related charges in November 2024. In the plea agreement, the Commonwealth dismissed the charges related to the December 2023 shooting, as the additional investigation by the police established that Bruce Hisle committed the shooting. Judge Jamilah D. LeCruise accepted Dennis Hisle’s plea agreement and, in March 2025, sentenced him to serve four years in prison with another four years suspended on the conditions that he complete two years of supervised probation and uniform good behavior following his release. At Mr. Hisle’s jury trial, Dennis Hisle was called by the Commonwealth as a witness. He refused several times to be sworn in for testimony, saying out of turn that he did not want to take the witness’s oath because he intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Presiding Judge Tasha D. Scott held him in contempt of court for failing to take the oath and sentenced him to serve an additional 12 months in jail.
Ms. Credle was later called as a witness and, after being sworn in and confirming her relationship with the two brothers, invoked her Fifth Amendment right. Ms. Credle was excused and declared unavailable as a witness, and the Commonwealth introduced a recording of Ms. Credle in a Norfolk Police interview room following her arrest. In the video, Ms. Credle was seen making multiple phone calls to family members. She informed one family member that “Bruce shot Mr. Carter.” She told another family member that she thought Mr. Hisle “was shooting just to shoot, and he hit Mr. Carter.” She also mentioned in these calls that Mr. Hisle had been wearing a trench coat, that Mr. Hisle put a gun in the glovebox after getting in the van, and that she heard Dennis Hisle joking around with someone before gunshots rang out.
After hearing the evidence in Bruce Hisle’s three-day trial, and deliberating for about two and a half hours, the jury convicted Mr. Hisle of felony homicide (for killing Mr. Carter while shooting at the other men outside the store), second-degree murder, using a firearm in the commission of murder, malicious wounding, and using a firearm in the commission of malicious wounding. The jury found Mr. Hisle not guilty of first-degree murder an additional charge of shooting at an occupied building. Judge Scott set Mr. Hisle’s sentencing hearing on Nov. 21.
In Norfolk General District Court in June 2024, Ms. Credle pleaded not guilty to her charge of being an accessory after the fact of a felony. She was tried by a judge, found guilty, and sentenced to serve 12 months — the maximum for a misdemeanor — in jail. In January 2025, Ms. Credle appealed that conviction to Norfolk Circuit Court. After hearing the evidence in a new trial, Judge David W. Lannetti found Ms. Credle guilty as charged and, in March 2025, sentenced her to serve six months in jail.
“I am proud of my trial team for the superb work they did in prosecuting all three of the individuals who took part in this terrible crime. We judge ourselves on hard work and caring, no matter what the verdict,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Thank you to the witnesses for cooperating with the police, the police for gathering the information necessary to charge and convict the right person for murder, and to the jurors for showing up and working carefully through a complicated set of facts. Above all, my continued condolences to Mr. Carter’s family and to everyone who loved him. Nothing we have done will bring Mr. Carter back, but I hope that the convictions in these cases will offer a measure of peace.”
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney K. Scott Miles and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony J. Balady prosecuted Mr. Hisle, Dennis Hisle, and Ms. Credle’s cases, and Norfolk Police Detectives Tyler K. Frear and John W. Murphy III led the investigation.
###