In the early morning hours of May 6, 2020, De'Andre Javaan Omar Rivers, a 27-year-old man from Goose Creek, was found shot to death in the driver's seat of his white Mercedes-Benz on Gullah Avenue in North Charleston, South Carolina. The investigation into his death would unravel a chilling murder-for-hire plot orchestrated from behind prison walls.
Investigators discovered that Rivers had been shot six times.
Their attention soon turned to Quinton Anthony Taylor, a 41-year-old North Charleston resident. Evidence revealed that Taylor had been meticulously tracking Rivers for days leading up to the murder, using a GPS tracker he had placed on the victim's car. Security footage from nearby residences and businesses showed a black Dodge Ram pickup truck, rented by Taylor, circling the area for three hours before the shooting and in the immediate aftermath. Just twelve hours after the fatal shooting, police stopped Taylor in the same rental truck. A search of the vehicle uncovered Taylor's iPhone, a black t-shirt, a purple Crown Royal bag containing a black ski mask, and $11,300 in cash.
The digital trail on Taylor's iPhone proved to be a crucial element in the case. Detectives found text messages and phone calls dating from nine days before the murder up to the hours following it. One of the most damning pieces of evidence was a one-word text message sent just minutes after the shooting: 'Done.' Further investigation revealed that Taylor was not the mastermind behind the killing. He had been hired as a hitman by Darrell Kasey Williams, a 33-year-old inmate at Evans Correctional Institution in Bennettsville. Williams had used a contraband cell phone while incarcerated to arrange and pay for the murder of De'Andre Rivers. The calls to plan the killing reportedly took place in April and May of 2020.
Days after the murder, Quinton Taylor was arrested and charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. He was already out on bond for unrelated charges at the time of his arrest. In September 2025, following a weeklong trial, a Charleston County jury found Taylor guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. In August 2025, Darrell Kasey Williams was transported from the state prison to the Al Cannon Detention Center and charged with accessory before the fact of murder for his role in orchestrating the hit on De'Andre Rivers.
