In the early morning hours of July 20, 2019, the body of 29-year-old Derrick Denali Berries Stuckey, a Black transgender woman and native of Charleston who worked as a manicurist, was found on the side of a road in North Charleston, South Carolina. Officers initially responded to a report of a pedestrian possibly struck by a vehicle, but investigators soon determined Stuckey had been fatally shot and opened a homicide investigation.

Authorities later charged 34-year-old Dominick Archield of North Charleston after a warrant was issued and he turned himself in. An affidavit says Archield’s 2013 White Dodge Charger was parked near the Lovey Dovey Club on Carner Avenue the morning of the killing; as Stuckey walked toward the club, he allegedly exited the vehicle and shot her multiple times in the face and upper torso before driving away. Archield was charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and was ordered held without bail pending trial. Police said they were investigating whether the murder was a hate crime but had not classified it as one.

Stuckey’s death was recorded among several murders of transgender women in South Carolina that year, and friends and family remembered her as free-spirited, outspoken, nurturing and sweet. If anyone knew Stuckey or saw activity near Carner Avenue around July 20, 2019, please share information with investigators.