Bob Grabowski, a 55-year-old White man, died on March 31, 2015, in the Aynor area of Horry County, South Carolina, after a gunshot wound at his workplace, PTR Industries. Late that Tuesday afternoon, a report of a shooting brought Horry County police to the gun manufacturer on Cool Springs Drive; when officers arrived, they found him behind the business in an open area, gravely wounded. The coroner later said he died from a single gunshot wound and ruled the death a suicide.
As the first shock turned into a careful, procedural response, detectives and investigators worked the scene while the coroner’s office handled the medical examination. Reporting that followed said an autopsy determined the wound was self-inflicted, describing him as having been found in a field behind PTR Industries. With that ruling, the case did not move in the direction of a hunt for an attacker—there were no suspects announced, no arrests reported, and no criminal charges tied to another person.
In public life, he was known as a longtime member of the Horry County Council—first elected in 2004 and sworn in early 2005—representing District 6, which included the Socastee and Forestbrook areas, and serving as vice chairman at the time of his death. In the days afterward, officials issued statements of sympathy, describing him as a steady presence in county government whose voice and work would be missed.
Away from council chambers, his obituary sketched a fuller portrait: born in Buffalo, New York, he served a decade in the U.S. Air Force as an air traffic controller, later owned Myrtle Beach Lighting, and remained active in civic and youth organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, the Boy Scouts, and Junior ROTC. The obituary also noted a life rooted in family, listing his fiancée and children among those left to grieve, and it set out the times for friends and loved ones to gather and say goodbye.
His death left an immediate vacancy in county government, and within days officials were laying out the timetable for a special election to fill the District 6 seat. That civic machinery—filing dates, primary and general election plans—moved forward while the community absorbed the quieter loss of a coworker, neighbor, and public servant whose final afternoon ended behind the place he worked.
