DARLINGTON — The shooting deaths of two Darlington County residents Thursday night are being treated as a murder-suicide.
Investigators said 29-year-old Jamie Williamson shot and killed his estranged girlfriend, 30-year-old Crystal Strickland, outside a convenience store and restaurant on Governor Williams Highway in Darlington County.
After that shooting, Darlington County sheriff’s deputies said, Williamson returned to his parents’ home and turned the gun on himself.
The incident started about 8 p.m. Thursday when deputies responded to Strickland’s shooting at the Town & Country restaurant and store. They found her body in the parking lot. She’d been shot in the head.
Strickland’s current boyfriend, Chris Wilkes, said he and Strickland began dating about a week ago, but had known each other for 15 years.
Wilkes said Williamson had been obsessively calling and texting Strickland, threatening her life at times, this week.
“She had been at my house most of the week ... and he would call and she would have to put the phone on silent because he would call 600 or 700 times in a four- to five-hour period,” Wilkes said.
On the evening of the shooting, Wilkes said, Strickland left his home and went to the Town & Country store for a pack of cigarettes.
Wilkes said witnesses on the scene told him Williamson followed Strickland to the store, pulled up beside her vehicle and shot her to death.
Investigators said Williamson then fled to his parents’ home and ran into the woods behind it, where he shot and killed himself before authorities could reach him.
Though Strickland and Williamson were estranged, they shared two children together. Strickland also had a third child. The pair never married.
Wilkes said he and Strickland were just beginning a beautiful relationship when the tragedy took place and said he felt it could have been prevented.
“Crystal was a very giving and kind person ... that’s a common theme, how kind she was and how much she cared about other people,” Wilkes said. “It’s a travesty that this occurred and I think it could have been prevented.”
Wilkes said Strickland tried to seek protection from Williamson, but was unable to get a restraining order because both Strickland and Williamson had been charged with assaults on each other.
Darlington County Sheriff Wayne Byrd said law enforcement officers weren’t made aware of a potentially dangerous situation between the two and said if they had been, every effort would have been taken to prevent further harm.
“I think that’s probably the most tragic part of this entire thing, is the number of people who have come up last night and today and said, ‘You know, he said he was going to do this,’ and yet nobody bothered to call law enforcement and make a report and let us know what was going on,” Byrd said. “Now they act surprised that he actually carried through on it.”
Darlington County Coroner Todd Hardee said Strickland and Williamson’s bodies have been sent to Newberry for autopsies which are expected to confirm the cause and manner of their deaths.
Hardee said it is important for not only the victims of domestic violence to come forward to seek help, but also their family members and friends.
“The most important thing someone could do is, if you feel threatened, whether you’re male or female, you need to let law enforcement know,” he said. “They have no way of knowing this unless you give them a call. Sometimes folks don’t do what they say, but sometimes they do.”
Darlington County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Andy Locklair said the situation was not only preventable but especially tragic for the children of the victims.
“It’s the saddest part of it ... the true victims here are those kids,” Locklair said. “It’s a terrible situation and people sit back and they hear about and read about these tragedies, but there’s two families affected because of this tragedy and the worst part of it all is that these kids not only have to deal with the fact of losing their mother, but their father as well.”
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