In the early hours of a Sunday morning in Ridgelay, South Carolina, a long-simmering feud came to a violent and tragic end, claiming the life of 29-year-old Albert Heyward. The setting was the Tap Ultra Lounge, a local nightclub on South Jacob Smart Boulevard, where the night's festivities would be shattered by gunfire.
The dispute, which is believed to have its roots in a high school animosity, escalated just before 1:30 a.m. on July 23, 2023.
Inside the club, Heyward was involved in a physical altercation with Herbert Dashawn Ford. Shortly after this fistfight, another man, identified by investigators as 19-year-old Lavent Altobby Frazier, allegedly opened fire, discharging over a dozen rounds inside the nightclub. Heyward was struck multiple times and was rushed to Coastal Carolina Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later that morning.
In the aftermath of the shooting, law enforcement moved swiftly. Herbert Dashawn Ford, 22, of Yemassee, was arrested and charged with being an accessory to murder. Another man, 22-year-old Kevin Jamol Young, also from Yemassee, faced the same charge. Investigators identified Frazier as the alleged shooter and secured a warrant for his arrest on a murder charge. Frazier was later apprehended and also charged in connection with another fatal shooting that had occurred months earlier in Beaufort County. The investigation suggests that the deadly encounter at the nightclub was the culmination of a years-old conflict between Frazier and Heyward.
