Fifteen-year-old Zeloni Canyus Ellison, known to family and friends as Zipp, was shot and killed outside his grandmother’s apartment on Roberts Street in Lexington, South Carolina, on the evening of January 29, 2022. Ellison was on the phone with a friend when he encountered neighbor 42-year-old Lavon Bernard Julius. A request for a cigarette escalated; the friend reported hearing a man say Is you good? followed by four gunshots. Ellison’s mother found him on the ground and witnesses said Julius appeared calm and nonchalant afterward and initially left the scene. Investigators recovered the firearm behind the apartment the next day.

Julius was arrested and charged with murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Prosecutors presented Julius’s prior convictions for strong-arm robbery, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, and assault with intent to kill, and argued the killing was motivated by irritation over the cigarette request. A Lexington County jury convicted Lavon Bernard Julius, and on December 13, 2023, he received life without parole for Ellison’s death.

If anyone knew Zeloni or has information about the night of January 29, 2022, please share what you remember.