A North Carolina man apprehended after shooting up a waterfront bar in the seaside town of Southport on Saturday night — killing three people and wounding eight others — was a conspiracy theorist obsessed with “LGBQT” “terrorists” colluding to “traffic” him.

Prosecutors say Nigel Edge, 40, surveilled the bar from his boat the night before the attack. At about 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, Edge pulled up next to the waterside deck in his vessel and opened fire with an assault rifle on a crowd gathered for a live music event.

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Edge was detained by the Coast Guard about a half-hour later, when he was spotted loading his boat at a public boat ramp.

At a press conference Sunday, Police Chief Todd Coring said the location of the shooting was “targeted” but didn’t elaborate.

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The police chief called the attack “highly premeditated.”

The alleged assailant faces three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder, and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors said they’re considering the death penalty.

Edge spent nearly six years in the Marines from September 2003 to June 2009, and was awarded the Purple Heart, according to ABC News. He was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005 and 2006 and ultimately rose to the rank of sergeant.

Chief Coring said, “We understand this suspect identifies as a combat veteran. He self-identifies. Injured in the line of duty is what he’s saying. He suffers from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].”

Edge suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the line of duty, including one to the head.

Prosecutors described the brain injury as traumatic and said Edge suffered from “significant mental health issues.”

Oak Island Police Chief Charlie Morris said Edge was known to police as someone “who frequently hung out on our pier,” adding the suspect had filed multiple lawsuits against the town and police department over the last few years.

Those were among a long list of lawsuits filed by Edge, rife with conspiracy theories implicating family, friends, and officials as “LGBQT White Supremacist Pedophiles” and “terrorists” in a twisted plot to abuse him, Advocate reported.

In 2024, Edge filed a federal complaint claiming he’d been targeted in “a Hate Crime (LGBQT toward a straight man),” and accusing his parents of being “LGBQT White Supremacist Pedophiles.” The vet tied those allegations to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and deceased cisgender and heterosexual child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The judge in the case called Edge’s claims “extraordinary” but legally baseless.

In February, Edge accused relatives and acquaintances of being “captors acting as family” who trafficked him for “Epstein’s Elite Pedophile Ring” in a lawsuit seeking $500,000 in compensation from each defendant. A magistrate judge described the claims as “so delusional that they are simply unbelievable.”  

The same month, Edge filed a case against American Idol singer Kellie Pickler, accusing her and her late husband of poisoning him. According to Edge, their names contained “LGBQT codes” as part of a wider conspiracy. The suit sought $1 million in damages from the singer.

Edge also sued the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), claiming that VA doctors also poisoned him, gaslit him, and prescribed unnecessary drugs as part of an “LGBQT code” designed to humiliate him.  

In May, Edge named five acquaintances in a conspiracy with “White Supremacist Pedophiles” and “LGBQT/Terrorist” groups to traffic him since childhood, while a June lawsuit accused a physician assistant of medical malpractice, poisoning, and attempted murder during treatment at the VA.

Then just days before the mass shooting, Edge filed another case against the VA, repeating many of his previous claims with news articles and earlier court filings as exhibits.

A day later, he moved to dismiss the complaint, asked for a refund, and apologized to the judge for “wasting the court’s time.”

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