Grandson to spend life in prison in death of grandma shot with BB gun, NC officials say

A longtime waitress fulfilled her dream of owning a restaurant before her life was cut short in North Carolina, loved ones said.

“Her customers brought her great joy and she loved being able to serve them ,” an online obituary for 60-year-old grandmother Paulette Clark said. “She always put her family first as they were a constant top priority in her life.”

Months after Clark started running the Dixie Diner in 2022, the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office said she was shot in the face with a BB gun and died. Now, two years later, her grandson has been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Austin Amos Kennedy Byrnside, 24, also was found guilty of first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit common law robbery, Prosecutorial District 42 said in an Oct. 8 news release. When reached by phone, a person in a law office believed to be representing Byrnside said the attorney wasn’t available for comment.

The case dates to May 6, 2022, when the grandmother was sleeping next to her husband, Marty. Officials believe someone came into a window, shot Clark and attacked her with brass knuckles.

“Byrnside used the butt of an air rifle to assault Mrs. Clark as well as discharging the air rifle in close proximity into Mrs. Clark’s eye,” Sheriff Lowell S. Griffin said in video from a 2022 news conference. “The projectile from the air rifle traveled past her eye and lodged in her brain.”

In court, Dr. Elaine Chan said the projectile couldn’t be removed without more injury to Clark’s brain. She was discharged from a hospital and found a few days later “with a high fever and foaming at the mouth,” prosecutors said.

Clark died May 13, 2022, leaving behind 18 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“She was an amazing person,” granddaughter Jordan Collins told WLOS in 2022. “She would give anyone the shirt off her back.”

Clark also is remembered as a beloved restaurant owner and member of the Laurel Park community, a roughly 25-mile drive south from the mountain town of Asheville. She loved gardening and vacationing at the beach, according to Griffin and an obituary on the Forest Lawn Funeral Home website.

Byrnside reportedly told prosecutors he and his uncle Maurice Jones Jr., planned to rob and kill Marty. Jones pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in 2023, officials said.

Waffle House customer gets angry waiting for his food and kills worker, NC cops say

Soldier justified in shooting ‘suspicious’ Russian in yard taking photos, NC cops say