Francisco Javier Antonio Francisco, a 26-year-old man from the North Charleston area, was killed in the early hours of Saturday, September 23, 2023, when gunfire shattered the quiet along Stall Road. In the dark just before dawn, police were called to the 7200 block after reports of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found him lying in the grass with a gunshot wound and no pulse, and despite efforts by emergency medical crews he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Charleston County Coroner later identified him by name and confirmed that he had died from a single gunshot wound, fixing the date of his death as September 23 in North Charleston, South Carolina.
In the immediate aftermath, the scene on Stall Road was treated as a homicide, with detectives working through the early morning beneath the flashing blue lights that marked off the grassy area where his body had been found. The location, an apartment-lined stretch of road in a residential part of the city, suggested an encounter that turned deadly in a place where people would normally be sleeping or just starting their day. Investigators gathered shell casings, canvassed nearby apartments, and began piecing together how Francisco ended up alone in the grass, mortally wounded, as neighbors woke to the sound of sirens rather than alarms. At first, authorities released few details about what had led to the shooting, beyond confirming that he had been shot and that a full homicide investigation was underway.
Over the following weeks, the case moved from a nameless, faceless crime scene to a focused pursuit of those believed responsible. On October 6, 2023, detectives identified a 17-year-old named Lamont Isiah Hawkins as a suspect and took him into custody. Police announced that Hawkins had been arrested in connection with the Stall Road killing and charged with murder, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a violent crime, and four counts of armed robbery. He was booked into the Charleston County Juvenile Detention Center, but authorities made clear he would be charged as an adult, signaling the gravity with which prosecutors viewed the case. The arrest suggested that investigators believed the shooting was tied not just to a single act of violence but to a broader pattern of armed robberies that culminated in Francisco’s death.
Less than a week later, the picture of what happened on Stall Road expanded when a second teenager was arrested. On October 12, 2023, officers with the North Charleston Police Department and U.S. Marshals pursued a 16-year-old boy who fled on foot and threw away a firearm during the chase. After his capture, authorities said he too was connected to the September 23 shooting that had left Francisco dead. He was charged with murder, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a violent crime, four counts of armed robbery, and unlawful carry of a pistol, and was booked into the Charleston County Juvenile Detention Center. Together, the two arrests painted a grim image of a robbery-linked confrontation involving armed teenagers that ended with a man shot in the grass before sunrise on Stall Road.
As the legal process has unfolded, court records show that the case against Hawkins in Charleston County General Sessions Court remains pending, with no recorded disposition or conviction to date. Separate booking records reflect that he was later jailed again on a murder charge in April 2024, underscoring that the state continues to pursue serious accusations against him in connection with violent crime. For both teenagers, the charges stemming from the Stall Road killing place them at the center of a case that has yet to reach a courtroom conclusion, leaving Francisco’s family and community still waiting for a final legal resolution to the night he lost his life.
