William Todd ’T.J.’ Watlington Jr. was 27 and a resident of Lexington when he was one of two men fatally shot inside a home on Kentucky Street in Columbia’s Olympia neighborhood on the evening of July 24, 2014. Officers found Watlington and 22-year-old Joshua Samuel Cullifer deceased from gunshot wounds in the lower level of the house. The Richland County Coroner’s Office ruled gunshot wounds the cause of death for both men.

Investigators say a verbal altercation over drugs with an acquaintance escalated and both victims were shot in the upper body. Authorities arrested 17-year-old Carlos Flores and charged him with two counts of murder; a 15-year-old female was taken into custody and charged as an accessory after the fact, with her case to be handled in family court. Watlington was an auto mechanic and the father of a young daughter, remembered by his family as a loving son and protective brother.

Did anyone in the Olympia or Lexington areas know T.J. or have information about the night of July 24, 2014?