Arrest made in deadly 2016 Myrtle Beach Mall shooting
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. March 2 2020 Horry County Police have made an arrest in a deadly shooting at the Myrtle Beach Mall back in 2016.
HCPD Friday afternoon held a press conference to make the announcement.
The suspect, 26-year-old Dominique Hemingway, of Tabor City, North Carolina, has been in police custody since 2017. Hemingway was serving time in J. Reuben Long Detention Center on an armed robbery charge.
Police wouldn’t specify how they connected Hemingway to the case, only explaining that a community member reached out.
Hemingway has a lengthy criminal history, including charges for assault and battery, armed robbery, receiving stolen goods and kidnapping. In 2017, he was arrested for robbing a Loris woman at gunpoint in her home.
On Jan. 8, 2016, officers found 78-year old Frances Mae Davis shot inside her car in the Myrtle Beach Mall parking lot.
Her daughter, who discovered Davis slumped over in the passenger seat, had briefly run into the mall for an errand. She said Davis had been robbed in the process.
Davis would’ve turned 79 the following day.
“I still carry the guilt around of stopping at the store,” Shelly Wells said on the first anniversary of her mother’s death. “Why didn’t I make her get out of the car? Just this one time, why didn’t I make her get out of the car?”
By then, Horry County Police said they had exhausted all of their leads, but continued to call the investigation “active.” A $20,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest.
No arrests were made by the second, third, or fourth anniversary either. Davis’ room at home remained untouched, with her Christmas tree lit continuously.
However, anger was slowly added to the family’s grief.
“We’re on the fifth detective. We’re four years into it. We know nothing more today than we did the day it happened and I can’t believe in broad daylight nobody saw anything.” Davis’ other daughter, Michele Gagne, said last month.
The family filed a lawsuit against the mall and its security service.
Davis was the mother of three children and had five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
WPDE
