A teenager was shot in the head, now another SC teen is charged with murder, cops say
A South Carolina teenager was arrested Tuesday on multiple charges, including murder, weeks after another teen was shot in the head and killed, the Aiken Department of Public Safety said.
In addition to murder, 19-year-old Greenwood resident Jaden Mitchell was charged with two counts of attempted murder, and three counts of possession of a weapon during commission of a violent crime, the department of public safety said Wednesday in a news release.
The charges stem from a May 29 shooting, according to the release.
The shooting happened at about 7:20 p.m. on Redd Street near Tennessee Avenue in Aiken, according to the release. That’s in the area between the USC Aiken campus and Aiken High School.
An officer with the Aiken Department of Public Safety responded to the shooting and found Amari Williams inside a vehicle parked in the road in front of the Redd Street Park, law enforcement said.
Williams, a 19-year-old Graniteville resident, was taken to an area hospital where he died less than an hour after he had been shot in the head, Aiken County Coroner Darryl Ables said.
A 23-year-old woman and a juvenile girl were also in the car with Williams when the shooting happened, according to the department of public safety. The woman, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, and the child in the back seat did not suffer physical injuries, but had to “duck and cover in order to avoid being struck by rounds as they passed through the vehicle,” arrest warrants said.
There were multiple bullet holes in the vehicle, according to an incident report.
No bond has been set on any of the charges and Mitchell remains behind bars at the Aiken County Detention Center, jail records show.
There was no word on a motive for the shooting, and other people might have been involved.
Additional arrests are expected, according to the department of public safety, which is continuing to investigate the shooting.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call the department of public safety at 803-642-7620, CrimeStoppers at 888-CRIME-SC or submit an online tip.
“Information from the community is vital to solving this and any crime,” the department of public safety said.
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This story was originally published June 14, 2023 at 9:53 AM.
