Where are they now?: Mom of Dominique Williams speaks out after son's death in Coligny shooting

Fresh off her workday July 19, Rudy Milton was hanging pictures in her Bluffton home.

Soon, her son, Dominique Williams, 17, was supposed to meet her for dinner at her mother's house on Hilton Head Island.

As she worked, her phone kept ringing. Who, she wondered, were these people who were calling her from numbers she did not recognize?

She eventually picked up and heard the news that would change her life.

Dominique has been shot at Coligny, said Alex Brown, a church mentor of Dominique's.

Just then Dominique's father, Leroy Williams, arrived at her home to go to dinner. She jumped in his car, and they sped to the island.

Driving up to Coligny, they could see the deputies, the squad car lights and the police tape. It was an unusual site in the popular tourist spot, known as a family-friendly spot and a favorite hangout for local teens.

"At first they weren't telling me anything. I was like, 'I just want to see Dominique. What's going on?'" Milton recalled this month. "They weren't letting me see him, and I didn't know where he was."

She waited with family and friends for about 20 minutes. The coroner approached and confirmed her worst fears.

Dominique, her only child, had been gunned down. She would later learn the alleged shooter was just 15.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "I wouldn't even call it a state of shock. I don't even know the word for it.

"Who would want to do this to Dominique?"

'MY ONLY CHILD'

Milton arrives at the sanctuary of Central Oak Grove Baptist Church on Hilton Head on Dec. 2 wearing a purple dress and a button that bears a picture of her smiling son sporting a bright yellow bowtie.

"Domi," as she called him, loved bowties.

After his death, Milton donated blue bowties to the church's Boys to Men adult-youth mentor group that Dominique was a member of, so they could wear them to Sunday services with their white dress shirts.

She has arrived at the church for her first interview since Dominique's death. But she's unsure of her speaking skills and wants to be able to tell her story without being overcome with emotion. She joined the Hilton Head Toastmasters club in September to help her. Her long-range goal is speak out against gun violence.

"I just want to be able to be a voice," she says.

Milton, who is 35, speaks calmly, answering questions and talking about Dominique.

"His biggest thing was music, and he wanted to become a famous drummer," she says. He was often at the drum kit during Sunday church services when he was in town visiting his mother.

He lived with his father in Savannah, transferring to high school there after his freshman year at Hilton Head Island High. He ran track and had made the football team.

Milton says Dominique's summer was going as planned. He was a food runner at a Sea Pines restaurant and had just returned from a church trip. Nine days before the shooting, he celebrated his 17th birthday and had gotten his driver's permit.

"He was funny. He loved to eat," she says. "We liked to shop together, come to church together. He was a great kid."

As she begins to talk about how she's been coping since his death, her voice begins to falter.

Tears well up in her eyes.

"Why Dominique?" she asks, her voice trembling.

She had told herself she wouldn't cry. But she plows ahead, determined to continue to be a voice for her son.

"I can't not continue. He was only 17," she says through the tears.

"It's just something that I have to do."

"He was my only child."

WHAT SHE'LL MISS THE MOST

As the interview winds down, Milton's supporters who have joined her at the church seek to cheer her up.

Soon she's laughing and wiping away the tears as her sister reminds her of Milton and Dominique's love for sending selfies to each other's phones.

"They were the selfie king and queen," Lasha Milton says.

She also laughs at some gentle ribbing about her response to her volunteering at the Thanksgiving Day community dinner at Hudson's Seafood House on the Docks. Milton had felt the need to do something over the holiday to keep busy, to try to relieve the pain.

"That was an experience," Milton said and smiled. "Being in the kitchen because that's definitely not my cup of tea."

When asked if she helped cook, she and her supporters laugh.

"I'm definitely not a cook," she says.

So she helped serve the food and found herself feeling happy.

"It was a good way to start the Thanksgiving morning," she says.

After the interview, Milton agrees to be photographed and reluctantly speaks on video.

She seems embarrassed about crying and jokes about how her makeup must look. Afterward, her supporters reassure her that she was brave and did a great job.

A day after the interview, Milton calls to respond to a question she was too overcome with emotion to answer.

"You asked about Christmas," she said, a slight catch in her voice.

"I'll miss him waking up and hearing him say, 'Good morning, Ma.'"

She says she'll miss seeing him open all the gifts she would have bought for him.

She'll miss watching movies with him. She laughs about how he would get so angry when she'd inevitably fall asleep before they ended.

She'll also miss the laughter they shared. "He would dance and crack jokes," she says. "That's what he would do to keep us laughing."

But she especially wants it known there is one thing that she misses most of all.

"I miss being a mother."

Follow city editor Don McLoud at twitter.com/IPBG_Don.

Related content:

• Juvenile suspect in July Coligny Park fatal shooting awaits psychological evaluation
• Dominique Williams' mother, grateful for support, has message for parents
• Juvenile suspect in Coligny homicide turned in by family
• Teen's slaying a first at Coligny Beach Park

This story was originally published December 12, 2015 at 7:09 PM with the headline "Where are they now?: Mom of Dominique Williams speaks out after son's death in Coligny shooting."