A shooting at a motel room in Sumter, South Carolina, left 28-year-old Raekwon Rasheen Reyes Owens dead late on the night of January 25, 2025. Officers responding to the Rodeway Inn on North Washington Street found Owens with a fatal gunshot wound; an autopsy was scheduled at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Two women were in the room with Owens. A 25-year-old Sumter woman was wounded and taken to a Columbia hospital in stable condition; a 26-year-old Sumter woman present was not physically harmed. Investigators say the people involved knew one another.

Police identified two suspects early in the inquiry. Tevon Demetrius Guess, 34, of Pinewood, was arrested the morning after the shooting and charged with murder, two counts of attempted murder, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Melvin Shirell Belle, 39, of Sumter, later turned himself in and was charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder; both men were booked at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center.

Did anyone in Sumter have information about who was at that Rodeway Inn room that night or saw activity on North Washington Street around 11 p.m. on January 25?