Just after midnight in the late summer of 2007, Jason Carroll and his friend, Derek Chris Spain, were spending time together outside an apartment building in Columbia, South Carolina. Both were 20-year-old men with their lives ahead of them. For Jason's mother, Isabella Carroll, the future held the promise of watching her son grow and accomplish his goals. For Derek, it included the excitement of becoming a father, as his girlfriend was pregnant with their daughter.
The night of Sunday, September 2, 2007, shattered all those futures. At 12:02 a.m., Jason and Derek were in front of Building 7 of the Ames Manor Apartments at 5779 Ames Road. Derek’s girlfriend, Crystal Wilson, was with them. Suddenly, an unknown male appeared from the corner of the building and opened fire without any warning. The ambush was swift and devastating. Jason was struck in the chest, and Derek was hit in the head. Both young men died at the scene.
Miraculously, the gunfire missed Crystal.
The Columbia Police Department launched a double homicide investigation, registered under case number 07-29089. Investigators determined that Jason and Derek were simply hanging out when they were targeted, but a motive for the unprovoked attack remained elusive. The shooter was never identified, and with no immediate leads, the case grew cold, leaving two families with unending questions and grief.
Years after the murders, the pain remained raw for the victims' loved ones. "The hardest part is trying to live without my son day-by-day," Isabella Carroll said in a 2010 interview. "Never knowing who did it. Why? Now I have to go through the rest of my life not knowing what Jason would turn in to. What he could accomplish in his life. They destroyed me, they took a big part of me. I have an empty spot in my heart I'll never be able to fill again."
Crystal Wilson survived the shooting physically unharmed but was left with deep emotional scars and the task of raising a daughter who would never meet her father. "I have a love for them nobody will understand," she said of Jason and Derek. "I was out there and I didn't get hit. I feel like they were watching over me in their own way." She pleaded for anyone with information to consider Derek's fatherless little girl, Derecka. "Anybody who has a heart you wouldn't walk around and look at my baby and not feel any kind of remorse," Wilson said.
The families have endured years of silence, hoping that someone will finally come forward with the information needed to solve the case. "It's been 3 years," Isabella Carroll pleaded in 2010. "We have no idea. None. Somebody help us please. Help me." The City of Columbia government and the police department have periodically highlighted the case, asking the public for assistance in bringing justice to the families of Jason Carroll and Derek Spain.
As of September 2016, the double homicide remains an active and unsolved cold case with the City of Columbia Police Department. Investigators continue to seek the public's help to finally solve the mystery of why the two young men were targeted and to hold their killer accountable. Anyone with information regarding the murders of Jason Carroll and Derek Spain is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.
