In the early morning hours of July 3, 2019, Yumonica Pate Means, 46, was found dead in the roadway at the intersection of Highway 191 and Yonce Pond Road in Edgefield County, South Carolina, near a peach orchard. She died of a gunshot wound to the head. Patrol officers discovered the scene after a 10-year-old child placed a 911 call for help.

Investigators say her husband, Michael Tirrell Means, 39 at the time, lured her from their Aiken County home with text messages claiming he was in a car accident. When she arrived, an argument over an ongoing marital dispute reportedly escalated and ended when Michael shot Yumonica while her two young children were in the vehicle. He fled to Georgia, abandoned a vehicle in Laurens County, later surrendered, and confessed. He had purchased the gun two days earlier in Georgia in a private sale despite being prohibited from owning firearms and was on probation.

A jury convicted Michael Tirrell Means of murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime; a judge imposed life in prison without parole. Yumonica’s family remembered her as a mother of three and a longtime employee at the Milliken & Company Johnston Plant. If anyone knew Yumonica, her movements that night, or has information still relevant to the case, please share what is known.