On the night of August 18, 2014, in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Bryant Hud Kinsey, a 33-year-old Black man, was inside an apartment at the S&K Apartments complex on Carolina Avenue when the quiet of a late-summer Monday was broken by gunfire. Police were called to 107 Carolina Avenue for reports of shots fired, and when officers arrived they found Kinsey inside the apartment, gravely wounded by at least one gunshot.
He was rushed for medical treatment, but the injuries were too severe; he later died, turning what began as a “shots fired” call into a homicide investigation.
In the days that followed, the small apartment complex became the focus of an intense police presence and a neighborhood struggling to understand how someone familiar to the area could be gunned down inside his home. According to official accounts, officers encountered numerous people who had been in or around the building at the time of the shooting, but none were willing or able to provide information that clearly identified who had pulled the trigger or why. A passing witness reported seeing a white, four-door Buick or Cadillac speeding away from the complex around the time of the shooting, a fleeting image that became one of the few concrete details about the moments after the gunfire.
As detectives worked the case, they canvassed the area, interviewed witnesses repeatedly and followed up on tips. Over time, investigators were able to identify potential suspects, suggesting that there were people in the community whom they believed might have been involved. But the official cold-case summary maintained by the Goose Creek Police Department notes that a deep reluctance among witnesses to cooperate has repeatedly stalled the investigation, preventing those leads from solidifying into charges. Early news coverage described the suspect or suspects as still unidentified and the investigation as ongoing, with police publicly urging anyone with information to come forward through the department or through local tip lines.
The loss resonated beyond the crime scene. Funeral notices and memorial pages show that Kinsey’s homegoing service was held at a church in nearby Ladson later that month, drawing relatives, friends, and community members who remembered him in deeply personal messages. Online condolences speak of someone who was loved and is missed, with family and friends writing about grief, faith, and the hope that he is at peace. These remembrances stand in quiet contrast to the sparse official record: a man shot inside a modest apartment, a brief mention on a city cold-case list, and a handful of lines in the crime logs that mark the moment his life ended.
Today, Kinsey’s killing is still listed by Goose Creek police as an unsolved murder. The department’s cold-case entry emphasizes that despite an “exhaustive investigation” and the identification of potential suspects, the absence of willing witnesses has left the case without the evidence needed to move forward. Other public summaries of the case point back to the same core facts: a fatal shooting inside S&K Apartments, a vehicle seen fleeing, and a community appeal for help that has yet to yield the answers needed to secure an arrest, trial, or conviction in his name.
