Tahir Ademola Bailey, a 26-year-old Black man from Lady's Island near Beaufort, South Carolina, began the morning of February 11, 2025 like any other as the sun came up over the new Garden Oaks Apartments complex on Salem Road. A little after dawn, at about 6:30 a.m., Beaufort police were dispatched on a “man down” call to the 2000 block of Salem Road, where the quiet of the early hour had been broken by gunfire.
Officers arrived to find Bailey lying unresponsive at the complex with an apparent gunshot wound; he was pronounced dead at the scene as patrol cars and crime-scene tape quickly sealed off the parking lot and walkways around the buildings while investigators started their work.
By late that day and into the next, officials confirmed the victim's identity and notified his family, and the Beaufort County Coroner publicly identified him as Tahir Bailey of Lady's Island. Online memorials and obituaries posted by Allen Funeral Home and shared through Legacy and Echovita described him as deeply loved and cherished, the son of Robert and Brenda Bailey of Lady's Island. Visitation was scheduled for the evening of February 16 at Allen Funeral Home's chapel in Beaufort, followed by a funeral service on February 17 at Israelite Baptist Church on Lady's Island; burial was planned in the church cemetery, tying his final resting place to the community where he had grown up. Friends and relatives were invited to share memories, light virtual candles, and plant trees in his honor, small gestures that stood in stark contrast to the violence that had taken his life.
At Garden Oaks itself, the hours after the shooting were tense and surreal. Residents were told to stay away from portions of the complex as officers photographed the scene, marked shell casings, and canvassed doors for witnesses who might have heard or seen something in the dim early morning light. Police issued public appeals for information, providing case number 25B05429 and a dedicated investigator's phone line, along with a tip line where anonymous callers could share what they knew. The reports noted that the investigation was active and ongoing, and they drew additional attention because the complex, only recently opened, had already experienced other shootings in the months before and after Bailey's death.
Nine days later, the case became more focused when Beaufort police publicly named a suspect. A news release and subsequent coverage by regional outlets identified 23-year-old Derrick Lamonte Singleton Jr. as the man wanted in connection with Bailey's killing. According to police, Singleton faced a slate of serious charges: murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, criminal conspiracy, and discharging a firearm into a vehicle. Authorities said that around 6:30 a.m. on February 11, officers had been called to Garden Oaks Apartments, where they found Bailey dead from a gunshot wound, and they urged anyone who knew Singleton's whereabouts to contact investigators or submit anonymous tips through Crime Stoppers of Beaufort County.
For a brief period, Singleton remained at large, and his name and photograph circulated as police warned the public he was wanted for murder. That changed on February 21, 2025, when WJCL reported that Singleton had turned himself in to the Columbia Police Department, ending a regional search that had stretched for days. Subsequent coverage described him as a Beaufort homicide suspect now in custody, still facing the same array of charges: murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, criminal conspiracy, and discharging a firearm into a vehicle in the killing of Tahir Bailey at Garden Oaks. Court and warrant listings from Beaufort County document those charges but, in public reporting through the rest of 2025, he continues to be described as charged rather than convicted, with the investigation and court process still ongoing and no widely reported verdict announced.
As the months passed, Bailey's death remained part of a larger story unfolding at Garden Oaks. In June 2025, The Island News detailed how a series of violent incidents at the complex—including the February shooting that claimed Bailey's life and another shooting in late May—had spurred the City of Beaufort and its police department to take more aggressive steps. A police substation was established inside one of the apartments, more than 60 extra patrols and foot patrols were logged, and multiple eviction actions were filed against people tied to violent incidents, all under a broader push to reclaim the property for residents who just wanted a safe place to live. City officials spoke publicly about not allowing violent crime to erode quality of life, and Bailey's name appeared in that coverage as an early and devastating loss in a pattern the city was determined to break. By late 2025, his family and community were still navigating grief and memorializing him in online tributes, while the criminal case against the man accused of killing him moved forward in the courts, a reminder that full legal closure had yet to match the emotional weight of his absence.
