BURGAW, N.C. (Court TV) — A man accused of sexually assaulting and killing his young niece says he is innocent and the victim of a “witch hunt.”
David Prevatte, 27, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, statutory rape of a child by an adult and statutory sexual offense with a child by an adult in the death of 5-year-old Paitin Fields.
David Prevatte appears in court on Oct. 1, 2026. (Court TV)
Prevatte was 19 when he carried the victim into an emergency room on Nov. 13, 2017. Surveillance video played for jurors on the first day of trial showed him racing through the hospital doors carrying the child, who appeared limp and unconscious.
Nurses and doctors caring for the 5-year-old immediately noticed marks around her neck. When a nurse went to give her a catheter, she noticed injuries to the child’s genital area and signs of sexual assault.
Doctors declared Paitin brain-dead on Nov. 14. She was taken off life support Nov. 15, after her organs were removed for donation.
When Paitin died, she and her 7-year-old sister were in the custody of their grandparents, who are also Prevatte’s mother and stepfather. Days before Paitin was taken to the hospital, Prevatte moved back into his parents’ home after he got into a fight with his girlfriend. The girls had been staying in Prevatte’s room, but they moved to the couch in the den when he returned.
Prosecutor Shirley Smircic told the jury in her opening statement on Thursday that in the early hours of Nov. 13, Paitin’s sister woke up and saw the defendant standing by the couch where her sister was lying. “As she woke up, she saw her uncle walk back to his room. And when she looked over at Paitin, she noticed something was wrong,” Smircic said. The 7-year-old tried to wake her grandparents, but they sent her back to the living room.
When Paitin’s grandmother woke up and came into the room, she screamed when she saw the child on the couch. She could not get through to 911, so her husband and Prevatte drove Paitin to the emergency room.
Surveillance video played in court shows David Prevatte carrying his niece into the hospital on Nov. 13, 2017. (Court TV)
“Child sexual assault and murder does not occur out in the open,” Smircic said. “It happens behind closed doors. The eyewitness, Paitin Fields, is dead. But the evidence, taken all together, can speak for her.”
“David Prevatte did not rape, sexually assault, or murder his niece, Paitin Fields,” defense attorney Luther Britt III told the jury in his opening statement. “By his plea of not guilty to these charges, he has told you and the world that he did not kill his niece, he did not rape his niece, he did not sexually assault his niece. He became the victim of a witch hunt. A witch hunt that had evidence that was twisted and turned.”
Britt said that detectives failed to identify any other suspects and focused only on his client despite what he called a lack of evidence tying Prevatte to the crime. While Smircic said that a rape kit was done on the child, Britt said that no male DNA was recovered.
Prevatte’s defense also told the jury to question testimony from the victim’s sister, now 16. Britt said that Paitin’s sister never mentioned seeing Prevatte in the middle of the night until years after her sister’s death, when she was living with her paternal aunt. That same aunt was asked to leave the courtroom while prosecutors were helping the teen practice her testimony, Britt said, because the child would look at her aunt before answering every question.
