Curtis Jerome Franks II, 32, a man from North Charleston, South Carolina, was with other people on the night of Saturday, October 22, 2016, when gunfire tore through the parking lot of a townhome complex in the 7500 block of Hunters Ridge Lane. Police were dispatched after reports of shots fired, and they arrived to find Franks on the ground suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, the kind of injuries that leave little time for explanations and even less for goodbyes.
As detectives began trying to piece together what happened, witnesses described Franks being seen in the area before the shooting, and then, in the frantic moments that followed, movement and escape: several people running from the location and two vehicles—described as a white Jeep and a dark-colored Crown Victoria or Mercury Marquis—speeding away from the scene. What led to the shots, who fired them, and whether those fleeing were bystanders, accomplices, or simply people panicking in the chaos wasn’t publicly answered in the initial reports, only that investigators were working the case and looking for help from anyone who knew more than what could be seen under streetlights.
Early accounts differed on the final moments after officers found him. One report said he was pronounced dead at the scene, while another said he was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead there, with Dorchester County Coroner Alice Durr identifying him and placing the shooting at about 10 p.m. that night in the parking lot of the townhome complex. In either telling, the end came quickly, and the public details that followed were spare: an investigation, a search for answers, and a request for information, but no suspects named and no arrests announced in the coverage available from that period.
In the days afterward, grief settled into the routines that follow a sudden death. A published obituary noted that Franks entered eternal rest on October 22, 2016, and that relatives and friends were invited to a Celebration of Life service the following Saturday, October 29, at St. Peters AME Church on Sanders Avenue in North Charleston, with arrangements handled by Pasley’s Mortuary.
