Dantroy Cuthbertson was 35, a Black man, when his life ended in gunfire on Saturday night, January 3, 2015. In the town of New Ellenton, South Carolina, he was shot around 10:30 p.m. on the 400 block of Williamson Avenue. By the time help arrived and the scene was secured, there was nothing anyone could do; the Aiken County coroner said Cuthbertson was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after midnight as the date rolled into Sunday.
In the hours after the shooting, officials described the case as an active investigation, with Aiken County authorities working alongside New Ellenton police. The public was given only the broad outline: a man from Blackville had been killed in New Ellenton, and investigators were still piecing together what had happened and why. No motive was publicly described in the early reporting, leaving the night’s final moments to be defined by what neighbors could see from outside the tape and what detectives could reconstruct inside it.
As the case moved forward, two suspects emerged. Gun Violence Archive lists Devonte Green and Rakeem Jackson as suspects in the incident and indicates both were arrested, and an Aiken Standard social post later stated that Green and Jackson were charged in Cuthbertson’s murder. Other reporting tied to later coverage in the region also described Green and a juvenile as the shooters in the New Ellenton killing, suggesting investigators believed more than one person took part in the attack.
While law enforcement worked the homicide, Cuthbertson’s family was left to carry the weight of the loss into the days that followed. An obituary published in early January 2015 announced a homegoing celebration held the next weekend in Williston, with burial planned in Johnson Cemetery in White Pond. The service details stood in stark contrast to the violence of the night he was killed, marking a shift from sirens and investigation to mourning, remembrance, and the attempt to put a beloved life into words that could outlast the shock of the moment.
