In the early morning hours of September 29, 2023, the life of Terrell Antrez Harris, a 17-year-old Black male, was cut short by gunfire in Savannah, Georgia. At approximately 2:10 a.m., police responded to a call in the 1000 block of Yamacraw Village, where they found Terrell suffering from a serious gunshot wound outside building 1000. He was rushed to a local hospital but succumbed to his injuries. In mid-October, his family and friends gathered for a funeral service to say their goodbyes before he was laid to rest at Jackville Cemetery.
For nearly two and a half years, the investigation into Terrell’s death continued without any publicly identified suspects, leaving his loved ones and the community without answers.
Detectives worked to piece together the events of that fatal night, and the case remained an open and unsolved homicide.
A significant breakthrough finally came when investigators identified a suspect, Laquian Dawson, who was 13 years old at the time of the shooting. A grand jury returned a special indictment, charging Dawson with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. At the time of the indictment, Dawson was being held in a youth detention facility in Florida on other matters. Sources also revealed that detectives were investigating Dawson as a potential suspect in a separate, unsolved 2022 murder in Yamacraw Village, though he has not been charged in that case.
Dawson was extradited from Florida back to Chatham County to face the charges in Terrell Harris's death. He was to be tried as an adult and was held at the Youth Detention Center in Savannah following his arrest. In August 2026, Dawson, then 16, appeared in court with his public defender. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and requested a jury trial. As of August 2026, legal proceedings were continuing in Superior Court, with another hearing scheduled for November to set a trial date.
