On the afternoon of April 4, 2017, sirens and urgency converged on a home near Farrow Road in Columbia, South Carolina. Inside that address on Koon Road, Margaret Hooks, 24, a Black woman, had been shot in the head, and the moments that followed became a frantic race as responders moved her from the scene to a local hospital.
She did not survive.
Medical staff pronounced her dead at the hospital, and the Richland County Coroner later identified her as the victim; reporting at the time said an autopsy indicated the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.
By the next day, investigators announced an arrest and named a suspect from within her own family: her brother, Daquan Willie Scott. Police said he was accused of shooting Hooks at 5757 Koon Road shortly after 3 p.m., and they charged him with murder, possession of a stolen firearm, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. Authorities also said a K-9 team located the suspected murder weapon at the scene, and officers determined the handgun had been reported stolen from Chicago; investigators described the motive as still under investigation.
Scott was booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center as the case entered the criminal court process, with officials emphasizing that anyone charged is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. In the public reporting and releases describing the homicide and the arrest, no additional suspects were identified beyond Scott.
In the days after the shooting, arrangements were made to lay Hooks to rest, with services scheduled in Columbia and burial to follow in Gadsden, as her family prepared to mourn her and remember her life.
