Dereck Hilton, a 34-year-old Black male, was killed in the early morning hours of July 30, 2022, after a crowded gathering in Girard, Georgia turned violent. Reports said the shooting happened around 1:00 to 1:40 a.m. at a place on Claxton Road that authorities described as an unlicensed bar or shot house. About 60 people were there when gunfire broke out, and the scene quickly became chaotic. Hilton, who was identified in coverage as being from Sardis, was one of five people shot. He was taken to Burke Health, but he did not survive his injuries.
What began as a party ended with a small Burke County community waking up to a homicide investigation, multiple wounded victims, and a crime scene littered with shell casings. Investigators said there were signs that more than one weapon had been fired, with reports noting shell casings from at least three guns. That detail gave the case the feel of confusion and panic rather than a single, isolated act, and it helped explain why so many people were hurt in a matter of moments.
In the immediate aftermath, the Burke County Sheriff’s Office identified two suspects: Jawuandre Dimera Kelly and Jordan James Perkins. Authorities said both men were wanted on murder charges in Hilton’s death as well as four counts of aggravated assault connected to the other people who were shot. For a time, both men remained at large, and law enforcement even announced a reward for information leading to their arrests. The case lingered in that tense stage where a killing had shaken the area, suspects had been named, and deputies were still trying to bring them in.
Arrests eventually followed in December 2022. Perkins was taken into custody after a lengthy standoff in North Augusta, South Carolina, an ending that gave the manhunt a dramatic close on his side. Kelly was then arrested two days later by DeKalb County authorities without incident. By that point, the investigation had moved from the frantic search for suspects into the slower and more uncertain world of indictments and court proceedings.
A Burke County grand jury later indicted both Kelly and Perkins in Hilton’s death, with reports saying they faced malice murder and felony murder charges. The owner and operator of the Claxton Road property, Kenneth Brigham, was also charged with maintaining a disorderly house, reflecting law enforcement’s view that the location itself had become a trouble spot. The shooting was no longer treated as a one-night burst of violence alone, but as something tied to a place already known to authorities.
The case then took another turn in court. Later reporting said Perkins went to trial and was found not guilty by a jury, meaning one of the two men once accused in the killing was cleared in that proceeding. As for Kelly, online reporting that is publicly available is much thinner after the arrest and indictment stage, and the material I found did not clearly show a later public trial outcome or conviction in Hilton’s case. So the public record available online tells a story that begins with a deadly burst of gunfire at a crowded late-night gathering, moves through a manhunt and arrests, and then leaves at least part of the legal ending less visible than the violence that first brought the case into the open.
