Doug Kennerly had built his life in Summerville, South Carolina, where friends and family knew him as Douglas Pierre Kennerly, a 34-year-old Black male. On the evening of September 24, 2022, a normal Saturday in the town slipped into tragedy. Doug made his way to Creative Cuttin’ Styles, a neighborhood barber and beauty salon on North Cedar Street, the sort of small business that anchors a community and draws in regulars week after week.
As daylight faded, the familiar storefront became the backdrop to an act of sudden violence that would ripple far beyond the walls of the shop.
Around 7:20 p.m., reports of gunfire at the barbershop brought first responders racing to the scene. Officers and EMS personnel found Doug suffering from gunshot wounds outside or near the salon at 319 North Cedar Street. He was rushed by Dorchester County EMS to Trident Medical Center, but despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the hospital around 8 p.m. The Dorchester County Coroner later confirmed his identity and ruled the manner of death a homicide, with an autopsy scheduled at the Medical University of South Carolina to document the injuries that had ended his life. Obituaries and memorial pages that soon appeared online spoke simply of “Douglas Pierre Kennerly” of Summerville who died on September 24, 2022, leaving behind grieving relatives and friends who remembered him with affection.
In the days that followed, the Summerville Police Department and Dorchester County authorities began piecing together what had unfolded outside the barbershop. Their investigation ultimately focused on a 23-year-old man named Steven Earl Johnson Jr. According to the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office and subsequent news reports, Johnson was located in Florida and arrested there on October 7, 2022, by members of the United States Marshals Service. After his capture, he was extradited back to South Carolina and booked into the Dorchester County jail to face charges connected to the killing at Creative Cuttin’ Styles. Authorities charged him with murder, armed robbery, and a weapons offense in connection with the shooting that claimed Doug’s life, and he was held at the Dorchester County Detention Center without bond as the case moved into the courts. Public records describing the incident list Johnson as the suspected shooter and note that he was arrested unharmed, while Doug is recorded as the victim who died of his injuries.
Even as the legal process began, the loss was most keenly felt by those who had known Doug in life and by people in Summerville who may never have met him but were shaken by the violence. Online memorials invited visitors to light virtual candles and share memories, slowly filling with tributes that described a kind-hearted presence taken too soon. Social media posts from local crime-watch pages and news outlets treated the killing as a community wound, noting how the shooting had shattered a typical evening in downtown Summerville. As of the latest publicly available reports, Johnson’s case remained defined by the charges and his incarceration, with no widely reported trial outcome or conviction yet on record. What endures in the public record is the image of Doug’s final day: a routine visit to a neighborhood barbershop that became the point at which an entire community’s sense of safety was abruptly, violently altered.
