In the late hours of a Friday night in Bluffton, South Carolina, the life of 21-year-old Roy Leon Hamilton was cut short by gunfire. On June 3, 2016, residents near the intersection of Shults Road and Goethe Road were startled by the sound of gunshots. When police responded to the scene, they discovered a grim scenario: one man was dead, and another was seriously injured.
The deceased was identified as Roy Leon Hamilton, a young man from Bluffton known for his passion for writing lyrics
and rapping. He was born on August 30, 1994. The second victim, Deonte Stevenson, was wounded and airlifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Bluffton Police Department launched an intensive investigation. Their efforts quickly led to the identification of a suspect, 29-year-old Thomas Bush. Within a short period, Bush was arrested and faced the grave charges of murder and attempted murder. As the investigation continued, a second individual, 35-year-old Ricky Blake, was also implicated. Blake was taken into custody and charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact.
The legal proceedings against Thomas Bush took a significant turn when, for reasons not publicly detailed, the murder and attempted murder charges against him were ultimately dropped. According to Beaufort County court records, the case did not proceed to trial on those initial, serious charges. Information regarding the final disposition of the accessory charge against Ricky Blake is not readily available in public online sources.
Following the dismissal of the murder and attempted murder charges, Thomas Bush encountered further legal difficulties in unrelated incidents, leading to subsequent arrests on different charges in the following years. The investigation into the death of Roy Leon Hamilton has not resulted in any further arrests or convictions for his murder, leaving the case unresolved.
