On a December evening in 2021, Edwin Montez Boyd, 44, was shot to death while driving on Shady Grove Road north of St. George, South Carolina. The Dorchester County coroner ruled cause of death as gunshot wounds; deputies found Boyd’s car about six miles north of St. George riddled with bullet holes on the passenger side and pronounced him dead at about 6:25 p.m. His body was sent to the Medical University of South Carolina for autopsy and a homicide investigation was opened.

He was remembered by family and friends as Tez or Monty, a St. George High School alumnus who worked in local industry and trucking and was described in online memorials as a father, cousin, and friend. Deputies arrested 43-year-old John Stanford Johnson of Harleyville on December 30, 2021, and charged him in Boyd’s killing; court records later show Johnson received a $250,000 bond and was released on bond on July 28, 2022, with electronic monitoring and an order of no contact with Boyd’s family. Reporting to this point does not clearly document any trial, verdict, or final resolution of the murder charge.