Two men were found shot to death in and near the Oakland Apartments in Abbeville on the same day in late spring 2022. Just after midnight on Tuesday, May 24, officers discovered 26-year-old Jahvious Devonta Strong-Smith in a breezeway with a fatal gunshot wound to the chest; he was pronounced dead at the scene. Around 12:45 PM that same day, 30-year-old Henry Antonio Peck Dawson, Jr. was located in the woods near the complex and later confirmed by autopsy to have died of a single gunshot wound to his upper torso.

Dawson was a 2011 graduate of Abbeville High School and a father, described as a warm, community-minded resident of the apartments. The timing and proximity of the two deaths brought a joint investigation by the Abbeville Police Department, the Abbeville County Sheriff’s Office, the county coroner, and the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division. No suspects or arrests have been publicly identified, and any connection between the two men has not been disclosed.

Did anyone in Abbeville know either man or see anything around the Oakland Apartments on May 24 that might help investigators?