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Four days after her 18th birthday, a Durham teen was fatally shot in an elementary school parking lot in what her boyfriend may have tried to disguise as a suicide, a newly released search warrant indicates.
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Hailee Maye had just graduated from high school when she was shot in the head on May 15, 2025, behind Southwest Durham Elementary School, according to court documents and a GoFundMe.
Jason Torres, 18, was arrested about four months later in her death on a charge of first-degree murder, court records show.
Torres called 911 just before 8 p.m. that night, claiming Maye had shot herself, search warrants state. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
But warrants show that investigators discovered holes in Torres’s narrative of the events that night.
Torres told police he picked up Maye from work before they parked at the elementary school that night, according to search warrants. While they were in Torres’s vehicle, Maye began “playing with a gun,” Torres said.
“According to JT, while he was on the phone, the gun ‘just went off,’” an investigator wrote. “Maye was struck and killed.”
Torres declined further interviewing at police headquarters, invoking his right to a lawyer.
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Video surveillance gives police further details on the timeline of events. Footage from the school showed Torres’s vehicle arrived at 7:03 p.m. Torres exited the vehicle roughly 40 minutes later and called someone, search warrants state.
Torres didn’t call 911 for more than 8 minutes, investigators wrote.
“During the time period between when JT left his vehicle and when he called 911, he was seen speaking on his phone several times,” search warrants state. “According to JT’s statement, he immediately began CPR on Maye, and then called 911. However, the video showed JT spent a large amount of time out of the vehicle and on the phone.”
Torres could also be seen going to a nearby section of grass to wipe his socks off, two minutes before he called 911, according to the warrants.
Torres told investigators Maye “liked playing with and posing with guns,” an assertion police searched Maye’s Instagram account to try to verify. It’s not clear if Torres’s statement was ultimately corroborated.
Maye’s mother also told police Torres “would often make playful threats to Maye that he would shoot her,” search warrants state.
Torres, who has remained in jail since his arrest, maintains Maye’s death “was a tragic accident that will haunt him for the rest of his life,” his attorney wrote in a motion for bond reduction. His bail has remained at $1 million secured since Oct. 6, court records show.
Student U, a Durham nonprofit promoting equitable education, wrote in an Instagram post that Maye “was known for her energy, her kindness, and her deep involvement at Student U.” Maye’s loved ones said in a GoFundMe that the teen had planned to attend nursing classes.
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Torres’s case is next set to be discussed in court Oct. 16.