Jamal Edmonson, a 36-year-old Black male from Walterboro, South Carolina, was known to those close to him as a devoted son, father, and gifted athlete long before his name appeared in news stories about a roadside shooting in neighboring Berkeley County. Friends and family remembered him as warm and kind, someone whose presence filled rooms with easy conversation and laughter.
An obituary written after his death spoke of a life rooted in Walterboro, surrounded by an extended family of parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and a circle of close friends who considered him family as well. He was also a father to several children, whose names are listed tenderly in memorial notices, underscoring how many young lives were left with a permanent absence when he was killed.
Basketball was a defining thread in Edmonson’s story. As a teenager and young adult, he developed into a 6-foot-6 forward who played college basketball first at Francis Marion University and later at Southern Wesleyan, where he averaged double figures in scoring during one standout season. Player profiles describe a hardworking athlete from Ladson and Summerville-area schools, including Ashley Ridge High School, working his way through the ranks of NCAA Division II and beyond. Even after college, he stayed connected to the game as a graduate assistant at Charleston Southern, suggesting that what began as a childhood passion had grown into a vocation and a way he stayed connected to younger players following behind him.
On the night of January 8, 2025, that promising trajectory came to a sudden and violent end along Old Gilliard Road near Miles Lane in the Ridgeville area of Berkeley County. Berkeley County deputies were dispatched just before 11 p.m. after a report that a vehicle had veered off the roadway. When they arrived, they found a car off the side of the road and discovered Edmonson inside, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. First responders could not save him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The coroner’s office later confirmed his identity publicly, noting that he had died where he was found that night in the Ridgeville community.
In the early hours and days that followed, investigators with the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office treated the incident as a suspicious death discovered during what at first looked like a single-vehicle collision. The scene—a car off the road, its driver shot multiple times—suggested a crime that had unfolded either inside or around the vehicle before it left the pavement. Detectives began piecing together what had happened in the dark stretch of road, appealing to the public for information while forensics teams documented the vehicle and surrounding area. Online tributes began appearing almost immediately; on a national gun-violence memorial site, his name was added to the long list of people “lost to gun violence” on that date in Ridgeville, and dozens of virtual candles were lit in his memory.
Within a little over a week, the quiet grief in Walterboro and the unanswered questions in Ridgeville were met with a pair of arrests. On January 10, 2025, deputies took 26-year-old Alexis Dakota Davidson of Ridgeville into custody on a charge of murder; six days later, on January 16, they arrested 26-year-old Timothy John Creel, also of Ridgeville, on the same charge. Booking records from Berkeley County list both Davidson and Creel as facing murder charges, with Davidson booked on January 10 and Creel booked on January 16. A detailed account published later noted that the pair were accused of killing Edmonson and that both were being held at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center without bond after their arrests, as the homicide investigation continued.
Subsequent commentary on the case, drawn from court discussions and local analysis, portrays a deeply troubled sequence of events surrounding the shooting. One report described an altercation that preceded the gunfire and alleged that Davidson, who knew Edmonson, left him behind after he had been shot, even as he is said to have asked for help. The same account emphasized that Creel was a former boyfriend of Davidson, suggesting a complicated personal dynamic among the three adults that may have contributed to the circumstances leading up to the killing. These details, emerging in the context of a judge weighing bond for Davidson months after the shooting, hint at tensions and choices made in a moment of crisis that prosecutors argue turned a roadside encounter into a fatal betrayal.
As of the most recent publicly available reports, Davidson and Creel have been charged but not convicted, and the case remains within the court system. No trial dates or verdicts have been widely reported, and both defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence while the legal process runs its course. What is clear, however, is the impact the killing has had on those who loved Edmonson. Obituary and memorial listings describe a family circle missing a son and grandson, siblings missing their brother, friends mourning a loyal companion, and children facing birthdays, school seasons, and milestones without their father present. In the Lowcountry communities where he grew up, played ball, and raised his family, the story of his death is inseparable from the story of his life: a talented athlete and devoted father whose future was cut short on a quiet stretch of road, leaving a grieving family and an unfinished chapter now being written in the courts.
