On the morning of August 10, 2017, in the Argent Square parking lot off Ulman Street in Hardeeville, South Carolina, 77-year-old Ernest Martin Stevens was shot while sitting in the driver’s seat of his Ford F-150 just before 9:00 a.m. A stranger who had been seeking a ride approached the truck and fired eight rounds from a 9mm handgun into the vehicle. Stevens was struck four times — jaw, left arm, back and chest — and the chest wound proved fatal. He was unarmed and no weapons were found in his vehicle.

Investigators identified 28-year-old Devon Dontray Dunham of Hardeeville as a suspect and located him in Savannah, Georgia, where a fugitive task force took him into custody the next day. Dunham gave a videotaped interview in which he admitted he was the shooter, saying he had panicked after thinking the driver was reaching for something. SLED investigators linked shell casings and footprints at the scene to Dunham and to a gun with his DNA.

In May 2021 Dunham was tried in Jasper County on murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The prosecution showed the confession, ballistics tying casings to the gun, and testimony from nineteen witnesses.

Did anyone in Hardeeville or the Argent Square area notice unusual activity that morning or have information about Stevens before the shooting?