George Akeem Rayshawn Bennett was 27 when he was fatally shot on the morning of April 18, 2015, in Charleston’s East Side neighborhood near an apartment complex off Reid Street close to East Bay Street. Witnesses reported seeing a black Cadillac turn onto Reid Street, pull into the lot, and an occupant exit and open fire on a white 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis. Bennett was outside an apartment and near a parking area when he was struck; another person seated in a nearby car was also hit, but the three-year-old child that person was holding was not physically harmed.

Investigators tied the slaying to a drug dispute the day before between Bennett and Bryant Smith. Surveillance video showed the Cadillac and a second vehicle circling the area minutes before the shooting and gave detectives a partial license plate number. Bryant Smith was arrested on May 2, 2015, and his brother Seth Hassan Smith was captured on May 6. Court records later show Seth was convicted as an accessory after the fact for helping dismantle and alter the Cadillac; he received a fifteen-year sentence that was affirmed on appeal in March 2023.

Did anyone living in the East Side or near Reid Street in April 2015 see the Cadillac or remember unusual activity that morning?