Waffle House Customer Accused of Killing Teen Employee After Getting Angry While Food Was Being Prepared

Mar. 15, 2025

Burlie Dawson Locklear III (left) was allegedly gunned down Friday, Sept. 13 at the N.C. Waffle House where he worked. Police are looking for Florwer Carlin Lizano, Jr. (right), 38, who is charged with the 18-year-old’s first-degree murder.Photo:Laurinburg Police Department

Laurinburg Police Department

Police are looking for a 38-year-old man they believe fatally shot an 18-year-old Waffle House employee in North Carolina while his food was being prepared around 12:40 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 13.

Laurinburg police have issued an arrest warrant for Florwer Carlin Lizano, Jr., who is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Burlie Dawson Locklear III, Lieutenant Detective Jeremy White confirms to PEOPLE in a phone interview.

Within minutes of gunfire, police responded to the Waffle House in Laurinburg, where they found Locklear inside the restaurant “suffering from a gunshot wound,” police said in apress release.

Florwer Carlin Lizano, Jr.Laurinburg Police Department

White tells PEOPLE that Lizano waited for his order and grabbed his food to go before firing shots.

As he walked back to his dark gray Chevrolet, which police describe as possibly a 2014 model, Lizano allegedly “turned and fired two shots in the direction of the business," striking the 18-year-old, per police. Lizano allegedly fled the scene, according to police.

Burlie Dawson Locklear III.Laurinburg Police Department

Known as “Pudie” or “Stump,” Locklear, who graduated from Hoke County High School earlier this year, later died at Scotland Memorial Hospital, according to hisonline obituarywhich featured a smiling photograph of the teen with a cross hanging from his neck.

“Dawson was truly one of a kind,” his family wrote in his obituary, calling him “a jokester and a spirit lifter,” who enjoyed fishing, hunting and playing basketball and video games.

“Our hearts are shattered but our love and memories will never be broken and neither will the love that he left behind,” his family wrote.

Growing up in a tight-knit family with two siblings, his family credited his paternal aunts and uncles with helping raise him along with his parents.

“No matter how you felt, he could make you laugh and smile,” his family wrote in his obituary, which noted that he loved his family and friends “with everything he had.”

“Whether you saw him helping cook bloomin' onions or waiting your table at Waffle House he had that infectious smile,” his family recalled, adding that he planned to follow “in the family line of doing electrical work and wanted to own an electrical company one day just like his Papa.”

Police claim this surveillance image depicts Florwer Carlin Lizano, Jr. at the Laurinburg, N.C. Waffle House ordering window shortly before he allegedly fired two shots, killing an 18-year-old employee.Laurinburg Police Department

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Lizano is “known to frequent” Laurinburg as well as bordering Dillon, S.C., as well as Florida, per his wanted persons poster.

Police claim this surveillance image depicts Florwer Carlin Lizano, Jr. leaving the Waffle House around 12:40 a.m. Friday, Sept. 13.Laurinburg Police Department

“We’re still continuing the search for Lizano,” White tells PEOPLE Monday afternoon. “We encourage the public to keep coming forward with any information of the whereabouts of Lizano or sightings of Lizano.”

source: people.com