Luther Fludd, a 20-year-old Black man, was killed just before dawn on May 16, 2015, when gunfire tore through the uneasy air on Samuel Street in Lake City, South Carolina. Police responding to reports of a shot fired arrived around 2:30 a.m. and found an agitated crowd spilling into the street near the Carolina Girls Club. In the middle of the road, officers found Fludd, identified by Florence County Coroner Keith von Lutcken as being from Scranton, mortally wounded.
In the first blur of hours after the shooting, investigators worked their way through the chaos—faces in the crowd, half-heard rumors, the uneasy silence that can settle over a street after violence. Lake City Police Chief Jody Cooper said officers questioned roughly two dozen people as they tried to piece together what happened, but he would not release specific details while the case was still in its earliest stage. At that point, police acknowledged they had made no arrests.
The killing landed in a place already raw with tension. City leaders pointed to a history of violence linked to the same stretch of Samuel Street, describing multiple shooting incidents tied to the Carolina Girls nightclub over the years and arguing that the danger had escalated rather than eased. In filings and public statements about shutting the venue down, officials framed Fludd’s death as the moment the situation reached a breaking point—one more shooting, this time fatal, outside the club.
As weeks passed, authorities spoke more plainly about what they believed was behind the murder. Cooper said investigators determined the shooting was gang-related, describing it as part of a dispute involving the Bloods of Olanta and the Crips of Lake City, and he said Fludd was affiliated with a gang connected to the Crips while the suspects were members of the Bloods. Police named three people as being charged in connection with the killing: Tarik Wilson was charged with murder, and Dewayne Williams was charged with accessory before the fact of a felony. Cooper also said Marilyn Wilson, wanted on an accessory-before-the-fact charge, had repeatedly said she would turn herself in but did not, and investigators believed she lured Fludd to a car outside the nightclub where he was shot and killed.
Even with charges filed, the violence around the club remained a steady drumbeat in the months that followed. In September 2015, Cooper again noted that three people had been charged in Fludd’s death while speaking about yet another shooting tied to an argument and fights at the same nightclub. The city pushed forward with efforts to close the venue, and a judge later ordered the club shut down for a period, with the owners saying they would make security changes and try to keep gangs out if the doors reopened.
