Quienzavius Terrell Rogers, a 32-year-old Black man from Gray Court, South Carolina, was killed late on Friday, December 13, 2024, after a shooting at a home on Cow Trail. At approximately 10:50 to 11 p.m., deputies with the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office responded along with emergency medical personnel, the Laurens County Coroner’s Office and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Rogers was found dead at the scene and was not transported to a hospital.
An autopsy later determined that he had suffered a single gunshot wound to the side of his neck. Authorities immediately treated the death as a homicide and began searching for the person they believed was responsible.
Investigators quickly focused on Terrence Jerrell Williams. The Laurens County Sheriff’s Office publicly identified Williams as the suspect being sought in connection with the killing and warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous. Williams was described as 5 feet 11 inches tall and approximately 220 pounds. During the hours after the shooting, law enforcement appealed to the public for information about his whereabouts while the investigation continued with assistance from SLED. Initial public statements did not provide a detailed account of what happened immediately before Rogers was shot, nor did authorities publicly identify a motive or explain the nature of the relationship between Rogers and Williams.
The search ended the following evening. At about 8 p.m. on Saturday, December 14, authorities announced that Williams had been taken into custody. A later statement from the Laurens County Crime Stoppers Board revealed that an anonymous tip had helped law enforcement locate and arrest him. The organization said the information supplied by the tipster was considered crucial to the apprehension, and the person who provided it subsequently received an undisclosed cash reward. The arrest came less than a day after the fatal shooting, bringing the immediate manhunt to an end.
Williams was held in connection with the murder investigation, and on Sunday, December 15, a judge denied him bond. Local reporting based on Laurens County detention information also showed that he faced separate drug allegations at the time of his booking. Those included possession of 28 grams or less of marijuana or 10 grams or less of hashish and possession of less than one gram of methamphetamine or cocaine base. Other booking information indicated additional drug and warrant entries, but the publicly reported homicide coverage did not provide detailed allegations explaining precisely how investigators believed the shooting unfolded or what evidence, beyond the developing investigation, connected Williams to the gunfire.
Rogers’ death left his family preparing for a funeral only days after the killing. His obituary lists his birth date as July 17, 1992, and says he was survived by his mother, Shannon Woodruff; his father, Gerald Rogers and his wife Lavatta; his brothers, Justin Lamont Rogers and Corey Keshawn Bluford; and extended family. Funeral services were held on Friday, December 20, at Beasley Funeral Home in Laurens, with Reverend Sammie Stroud officiating, followed by burial at Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery.
The available public reporting establishes Williams as the lone publicly identified suspect in Rogers’ killing and confirms his arrest and denial of bond shortly afterward. The initial investigation remained a joint effort involving the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office, the coroner and SLED. No second suspect was publicly identified in the contemporaneous reports reviewed, and the publicly accessible online coverage located for the case does not provide a later trial verdict or conviction arising from Rogers’ death. The documented sequence therefore ends with Williams in custody, facing the murder allegation and other unrelated drug charges, while the precise motive and full circumstances surrounding the shooting remained undisclosed in the available reporting.
