Bluffton shooting: 2 victims identified by coroner were coworkers with suspected gunman
Following the arrest of the suspected gunman, Bluffton police have released new details in Wednesday’s double murder off Simmonsville Road. The fatal shooting claimed the lives of Beaufort man Roshaun Middleton, 34, and Hilton Head man William Whitaker Stewart, 33, the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office said on Thursday.
Orlando Odell Murphy, a 33-year-old from Bluffton, was charged with two counts of murder and illegal weapons possession, the Bluffton Police Department announced Wednesday night. Investigators say Murphy and the two deceased men were coworkers, although it was not immediately clear where the three were employed.
Murphy’s motive was unknown as of Thursday afternoon, police say.
At about 1:33 p.m. Wednesday, Bluffton officers and Beaufort County deputies responded to a number of gunfire reports in the area of Fuller Court, including from businesses along Bluffton Parkway. They arrived five minutes later to the back of Daltile, a building materials dealer on Bluffton Parkway.
In the area behind the business, police found one man with “multiple gunshots to his lower extremities,” according to the news release. Behind a residence on Fuller Court, officers found another man with a gunshot wound to his head.
Middleton and Stewart were pronounced dead at the scene after life-saving measures were attempted by police, fire crews and an EMS team. A time of death was not available for either man, said Beaufort County Coroner David Ott, and he would not specify which victim received which of the two injuries laid out by police.
One Bluffton officer noticed a gold-colored sedan leaving the area, which collided with a parked patrol car as the driver tried to flee from police on Fuller Court. Patrolmen began pursuing the car, which struck another vehicle on U.S. 278 and caused minor damage.
The police chase culminated near the highway’s intersection with Buckwalter Parkway, about four miles from the scene of the shooting.
Investigators used evidence from the scene to obtain arrest warrants for Murphy. Additional charges are pending, the release says.
The S.C. Highway Patrol also charged Murphy with two hit-and-run offenses for the collisions he caused during the pursuit with police.
Autopsies for the two deceased men were underway at the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office as of 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Ott told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Anyone with information related to this case is encouraged to contact Detective Corporal Matthew Eisenmenger at 843-505-3789, Bluffton police’s tip line at 843-706-4560 or the anonymous Crimestoppers hotline at 1-888-274-6372.
