Suspect who allegedly shot and killed a man inside Bluffton Wendy’s has been arrested, police say
The Beaufort man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a man in a Bluffton Wendy’s on Sept. 13 has been captured, according to Bluffton Police.
Aki Da Ron Franklin, 23, was arrested by the Bluffton Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Task Force Tuesday, a news release from the department said.
Franklin is charged with murder, possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a violent felony, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, according to the Beaufort County Detention Center jail log.
Abraham Gadson, 29, of Bluffton, was shot multiple times about 8:30 p.m. inside a Wendy’s on S.C. 170 with witnesses inside the restaurant. He died at the scene.
“Detectives and our Community Action Team have been working tirelessly to find the person responsible for this murder,” Bluffton Police chief Chris Chapmond said in the release. He said partnerships with the U.S. Marshals, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the 14th Circuit Solicitors Office made the arrest possible.
Three days after Gadson’s murder, there were two other shootings in the county — another in Bluffton and one on Hilton Head Island. Neither of those shootings were fatal.
Police are searching for two suspects in the Sept. 16 shooting that occurred in a Bluffton home on Albert Green Lane. Arrest warrants for Sherrod Green, 30, of Jelani Hakeem Menefree, 23, were issued in late September.
An hour after that shooting, two men were shot — one in the torso, the other in the hand — outside a residence on Blazing Star Lane off Squire Pope Road. A suspect in that shooting, Reginald “Reggie” Bascom Jr., 25, of Hilton Head, was arrested in California last week, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
The last murder the Bluffton Police Department investigated was in June 2016. Roy Leon Hamilton, 21, of Bluffton, was fatally shot in Oscar Frazier Park. Thomas Bush, 29, was charged with murder and attempted murder following the incident.
This story was originally published October 10, 2018 at 8:15 AM.