Joy Vivonia Stephens-Mack, 45, a Black/African American woman, was the victim of a fatal shooting in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in October 2009. On October 20, Mack was inside a residence at 4041 Tacco Court when someone fired into the home during what authorities have described as a drive-by shooting. The gunfire struck Mack while she was inside, turning an ordinary evening at the residence into a homicide investigation.
The case was investigated by the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office and has subsequently appeared among the county’s unsolved cold cases.
Mack was critically wounded and was taken for medical treatment. There is conflicting information as to whether she died on scene or at the hospital. A published obituary for her identified her full name as Joy Vivonia Stephens-Mack and reported that she died at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, listing October 21, 2009, as the date of her death. This creates a slight difference from law-enforcement cold-case information, which identifies October 20 as the date of the shooting. Taken together, the available records indicate that Mack was shot during the October 20 attack and died from her injuries either that night or shortly afterward at the hospital. She had been born on August 28, 1964, in Spartanburg and was the widow of Ray Mack. She was survived by her son, Jay Kelley, her daughter, Tiffany Kelley, several stepchildren, grandchildren, siblings, and other relatives.
The circumstances documented by the Sheriff’s Office point to an attack carried out from outside the residence rather than a confrontation that began inside the home. The shooting was specifically categorized as a drive-by, meaning Mack appears to have been struck when gunfire was directed toward the house from a passing or nearby vehicle. Publicly available cold-case information does not identify a motive for the attack, disclose whether Mack herself was the intended target, identify the type of firearm used, or describe a suspected vehicle. It also does not publicly name any witnesses who may have seen the shooter or vehicle before or after the gunfire.
No publicly available law-enforcement information located for the case identifies a named suspect, and no arrest, criminal charge, trial, or conviction has been reported in connection with Mack’s killing. Her case continues to be listed with Spartanburg County cold cases, indicating that investigators have not publicly announced that the homicide has been solved. Nearly two decades after the shooting, the central unanswered questions remain who fired into the Tacco Court residence, why the home was targeted, and whether Mack was deliberately targeted or became the victim of violence directed at someone else associated with the residence.
