Rick C. Hickman, a 71-year-old white man from Piedmont, South Carolina, spent the evening of Monday, January 2, 2023, inside his home on Old Cleveland Road in Greenville County when a burst of gunfire shattered the quiet of the neighborhood. Around 9:30 p.m., multiple shots were reported to authorities, prompting deputies from the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office to rush to the address where Hickman lived.
When they arrived, they found two people inside the residence, each suffering from at least one gunshot wound, marking the start of a tragic scene that would end with Hickman’s death.
Both wounded individuals were taken from the home to a local hospital for emergency treatment. Hickman, who had been transported from the address where he resided, did not survive his injuries and was pronounced dead at the hospital, his death recorded as a loss to gun violence on the same date. News accounts noted that he had been one of two people involved in the confrontation, but publicly available reports did not identify the second person by name or describe their ultimate condition, only that they, too, had been seriously hurt in the exchange of gunfire.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators emphasized that the shooting was not random. Deputies described it as an isolated incident contained to the property on Old Cleveland Road, stressing that there was no broader danger to the public and that both injured individuals were believed to have been directly involved in the violent encounter with one another. As the investigation progressed, authorities publicly characterized the case as an attempted murder–suicide between two family members, indicating their belief that the violence stemmed from a domestic conflict inside the home rather than from an unknown assailant.
Because investigators concluded that the gunfire arose from this internal family dispute and that both participants were among the victims found at the scene, they announced that they did not anticipate filing any criminal charges in connection with Hickman’s death. The coroner’s office noted at the time that the precise manner of death was still being formally determined, but public reporting since then has not documented any arrests, named suspects, or subsequent trials stemming from the shooting.
