Why was a Bluffton teen fatally shot in March? Motive revealed in new court testimony
On the night of March 5, two Bluffton siblings were on the lookout for “ops,” or opponents, involved in a spat with their friends.
From a Parker’s Kitchen off S.C. 170, Jayden and Shayniah Void, 18, spotted a car leaving the Wendy’s next door and alerted their friends.
They had the wrong teenagers and the wrong car, according to court testimony Friday from Bluffton Police Investigator Ryan Fazekas.
The mistake resulted in shots fired at that car, killing 18-year-old Dwon “DJ” Fields Jr., and sending many in the Bluffton community into mourning.
Also in Fields’ car were Edwin “EJ” Graham Jr., 16, who suffered two gunshot wounds to the face but survived, and Kylan “KJ” Simmons, who suffered a leg injury from the subsequent crash.
Simmons called 911, short of breath and frantic, unsure of what just occurred. It was close to 11:30 p.m.
He thought they had only crashed after their car hit the Hampton Lakes sign off Bluffton Parkway and went into a ditch.
He told the 911 dispatcher that Fields was unresponsive in the driver’s seat, according to an Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette review of the 911 call.
“Can you come on?” he urged the 911 dispatcher. “Where are you?”
Mistaken identity
Before the shooting, Fazekas said, the Voids had been in contact with Jimmie Green, 19, of Hardeeville, who was with Ty Leic Dae Jhon Chaneyfield, 18, of Ridgeland.
Green had told the Voids to be on the lookout for two individuals in a dispute with him and another group of teenagers.
Shayniah Void had an on-and-off romantic relationship with Green, according to Fazekas.
That night, they had been looking across Hilton Head and Bluffton for the individuals.
The shooting was revenge, the latest in a string of events between the two groups. It was preceded by retaliatory drive-by shootings of homes in Beaufort and Jasper counties.
The original reason for those shootings?
A “disagreement over a large sum of money and a female,” Fazekas said.
The reason the Voids mistook Fields’ car for the “intended targets,” he said, was that EJ Graham bore a striking resemblance to one of the teenagers they were looking for.
None of the three in Fields’ car — not Fields nor Graham nor Simmons — had any involvement in the disagreement.
Fazekas testified that Green arrived in a burgundy-colored sedan with Chaneyfield and an unidentified male, nicknamed “Shy.”
The Voids later told Bluffton Police that they watched the sedan overtake Fields’ car on Bluffton Parkway, and begin shooting from the windows.
There were bullet holes from the trunk to the front windshield.
Next in court
In Friday’s hearing to determine whether probable cause exists for the charges against Chaneyfield, who was in court, defense lawyer Scott Lee attempted to cast doubt on the credibility of previous testimony.
Lee, a Beaufort-based defense lawyer, pointed out that what placed Chaneyfield in the car that night was the testimony of Shayniah Void, who was not initially truthful with Bluffton Police.
But police investigator Fazekas said video evidence from Shayniah’s phone, surveillance video, and Chaneyfield’s cellphone data helped prove he was in the car for the shooting.
It was enough to convince Magistrate Court Judge Frederick Corley. He ruled that Bluffton Police sufficiently met the standard of probable cause.
Preliminary hearings for Jimmie Green and Jayden and Shayniah Void will be held in the next month.
