On March 7, 2022, 31-year-old Lawreese Prince Williams went to an associate’s home on Pine Creek Drive in Greenville, South Carolina, to collect a debt and was shot three times on the front porch by the homeowner, identified as Demazio Butler. Investigators found no weapon on Williams; Butler told officers he felt threatened and later admitted he knew Williams was unarmed. Butler was detained after the shooting but the Thirteenth Circuit Solicitor’s Office declined to file criminal charges, concluding the evidence could not disprove a claim of self-defense under South Carolina’s stand your ground law and ruling the death justifiable.

Williams’s mother, LaCosha Williams, has publicly contested that finding, describing the killing as execution-style and saying Butler shot her son, paused, then fired again. With no criminal case pursued, she filed a wrongful death civil suit and was awarded a default judgment of $3.5 million; the court found Butler solely responsible for an unnecessary and heinous act. Does anyone have information about Williams, Butler, or witnesses from that March 7 confrontation?