Paitin Fields

Paitin Renee Fields was a five year old girl from Watha, a small community in Pender County, North Carolina, whose name became known across the country not for anything she did but for the violence that ended her life and the long legal fight that followed it. She was born on June 23, 2012, in Lumberton, North Carolina, and was raised in Pender County with her parents, Lora Elizabeth Flowers and Robert A. Fields, and her sister Savannah Rose Fields. Public records say little about her personality or daily life, and relatives have largely kept those memories private.

On the morning of November 13, 2017, Paitin was carried into the emergency department at Pender Memorial Hospital in Burgaw with no vital signs. <cite index="12-1,12-2">On the morning of November 13, 2017, a five-year-old girl named Paitin Fields was carried into the emergency department at Pender Memorial Hospital in Burgaw, North Carolina, and had no vital signs.</cite> She was transferred to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, where <cite index="12-3">she lived for three more days</cite> before dying on November 16, 2017. <cite index="2-1">The North Carolina Medical Examiner's Office determined that the five year old was strangled to death and was also a victim of sexual abuse.</cite> A later, more detailed autopsy report concluded she died of ligature strangulation and showed physical evidence of sexual trauma.

No one was charged in her death for years. The case eventually centered on her uncle, David Wesley Prevatte, who was arrested in Louisiana and brought back to North Carolina to face first degree murder and child sex offense charges. His trial opened in Pender County Superior Court in Burgaw in early October 2026, nearly nine years after Paitin died. Prosecutors told jurors that DNA evidence, a pair of red earbuds matching marks on the child's neck, and medical testimony placing the strangulation within an hour of her arrival at the hospital pointed to Prevatte's guilt. His defense argued he was, in the words of his attorney, the victim of a <cite index="8-1">"witch hunt"</cite> built on twisted evidence, and cross examination established that potentially crucial evidence, including the child's underwear, had been discarded at the hospital and never tested.

The case mattered to the wider public because it combined the death of a very young child with a long and at times troubled path to trial, including a dismissed charge, days of difficult testimony about forensic and medical findings, and jurors who struggled over a verdict. A judge dismissed a statutory rape charge against Prevatte just before closing arguments, though the first degree murder and statutory sexual offense charges remained. Jurors began deliberating on October 13, 2026, and asked to review DNA results, photographs and other evidence rather than reaching a quick decision.

As of today, October 15, 2026, there is still no verdict. The trial was interrupted on its tenth day of proceedings by an inquiry into possible juror misconduct, after a bailiff reported that one juror appeared to know more about the defendant than she had disclosed during jury selection. Paitin Fields herself was laid to rest in late November 2017, with a memorial service at Wallace First Baptist Church and burial at New Hollywood Cemetery in Lumberton, long before the legal process over her death reached this point.