Two people were killed and two others were injured in a shooting in the first hours of Sunday on Mallett Road in Clarendon County, South Carolina, after what investigators describe as an ongoing dispute between the two people who died ended in an exchange of gunfire, the Clarendon County Sheriff's Office said.
Source: The Clarendon Sentinel
Deputies were called to 2806 Mallett Road at about 12:45 a.m. on Sunday, November 15, after a report of a shooting, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. When deputies arrived, they found one person in the yard suffering from a gunshot wound.
Source: Manning Live (The Manning Times)
A second person who had been shot was found later — not at the house, but at the Enmarket convenience store on U.S. 521. Investigators said that person had been driven from the scene in a vehicle and left in the store's parking lot. The sheriff's office has not said who drove that person to the store.
Both wounded men taken to hospital died there
Both of the first two victims found — the person in the yard and the person left at the Enmarket — were taken to McLeod Clarendon Hospital, where they died from their injuries, the sheriff's office said. McLeod Clarendon is the local hospital serving Manning and Clarendon County.
Two additional people were also shot during the incident. The sheriff's office said their injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening and that they are expected to survive. No ages, names or further conditions had been released for any of the four people shot as of Sunday afternoon.
Investigators: a dispute, two guns, an exchange of fire
Based on preliminary findings, the shooting grew out of an ongoing dispute between the two people who died, investigators said. They believe one of them first produced a firearm, prompting the other to draw a weapon and open fire, and that the two exchanged gunfire and fatally wounded each other. That account is the investigators' preliminary reading of the scene, not a final finding, and the sheriff's office stressed that the investigation is continuing.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's Crime Scene Unit — SLED, the statewide agency whose specialists routinely assist county sheriffs with major scenes — responded to help process the scene, including the vehicles involved in the incident, the sheriff's office said. The sheriff's office said there is no threat to the public.
The names of the two people who died have not been released, and the Clarendon County Coroner's Office had not identified them as of Sunday. The sheriff's office has not said who drove the second victim to the Enmarket on U.S. 521, has announced no arrests, and said no additional information was being released at this time.
A rural I-95 county woken by gunfire
Clarendon County is a largely rural county in eastern South Carolina, with Manning as its county seat. Interstate 95 and the U.S. 301 and U.S. 521 corridors cross the county, which means its sheriff's deputies police both quiet residential roads like Mallett Road and some of the busiest long-distance traffic on the East Coast. Sunday's shooting happened on a residential road, in a yard, well away from the highway corridors.
What happens next runs on two tracks. The coroner's office must formally identify the two people who died before their names can be released, a step that normally waits until families have been notified. In parallel, sheriff's investigators and the SLED crime-scene team will finish processing the scene and the vehicles, and investigators will work through how four people came to be shot in a dispute they say had been running before Sunday morning. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the coroner releases the names or the sheriff's office issues its next statement.