December 6, 2009

FAIRFAX, S.C. -- Nineteen-year-old TyDerria Mikell and twenty-three-year-old Amanda Davis are being held at the Allendale County Detention Center, charged in connection with a murder in Fairfax Saturday night, according to SLED.

The victim is thirty-eight year old Will Rogers Solomon of Yemassee, SC in Beaufort County. According to the Allendale County deputy coroner, his time of death was between 5:00 and 6:00 pm. An autopsy will be performed today in Columbia.

Solomon's murder at the Fairfax Motel on Highway 321 is the town's first homicide in years. Neighbors there tell News 12 this crime was very unexpected -- and a sign of a growing problem.

"This is a small community and everybody knows everybody," says a neighbor who asked not to be identified. "We don't expect to have any kind of violence like that, especially a killing."

That's why neighbors in Fairfax were stunned to hear that a murder had taken place, right in their own backyard.

"It was very shocking to me last night when I heard the news," the neighbor said.

Jennifer Timmons, SLED's Public Information Officer, says the crime possibly started as an armed robbery attempt -- then the gunman shot the victim several times. The Allendale County coroner says several guns were used in the crime.

The Fairfax community says they feel shootings are on the rise, and they say drugs are to blame.

"We see a lot of shootings all over different counties and things like that, and we've had a number of shootings here also," the neighbor says. "But there never has been a death behind it."

He says he's lived in Fairfax his whole life, and he's watched his peaceful town go through some unwanted changes.

"From the time I grew up to right now, things have changed tremendously," he says. "You never know what's gonna happen from day to day."

Other people in town say it was only a matter of time before violence in surrounding towns made its way here.

But for this man, who's called Fairfax his home for over fifty years, it's still hard to believe.

"I knew one day something was gonna happen, but I didn't know it would be so soon," he says. "When things like this happen, it hurts not only the family members and the victims, it hurts everyone in the community."

SLED is still investigating the crime, but more arrests are expected.