Three men from Ridgeland are facing felony counts in the double digits after allegedly forcing themselves into a a local residence and holding a family captive with handguns and a taser. Police say one resident was shot and several others were injured in the early-morning home invasion, including a 2-year-old child.
Residents of a mobile home on Wood Duck Street were likely asleep when the three armed men forced their way inside after midnight on July 6, assaulting several of the seven occupants and deploying a taser while demanding money. A father inside the home was shot twice, once in the shoulder and once in the hand, during a struggle with the suspects as he tried to “protect his child,” according to a Wednesday press release from the Ridgeland Police Department .
After staying in the home for about an hour, the suspects fled the scene with about $3,500 in cash, two handguns and several cellphones, according to department spokesperson Lt. Chris Warren. Family members then drove the gunshot victim to Coastal Carolina Hospital in Hardeeville.
All seven of the home’s occupants were attacked by the flashlight-style taser, Warren said. Five people requested treatment from EMS crews, although only the gunshot victim was hospitalized.
Details from victims’ interviews and evidence obtained via search warrants were used to track down the three men over the following weeks, Warren said. Two days after the break-in, Jasper County deputies arrested 28-year-old Deshaun Vadaul Heyward, believed to be the gunman who fired shots at the injured man. The two remaining suspects — Derrick Lamont Blackshear, 25, and Arthur Lee Edwards Jr., 17 — were apprehended July 16, jail records show.
All three suspects were charged with armed robbery, first-degree burglary, a felony firearms offense and seven counts of kidnapping, corresponding to the home’s seven occupants who were held against their will. Heyward faces an additional accusation of attempted murder for allegedly shooting the father; he was also charged with two counts of felony domestic violence through outstanding warrants from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office.
The case is being investigated by the Ridgeland Police Department with help from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, according to Warren. Additional charges against the three suspects “should be expected.”
Warren would not say whether the family knew the three men or if the break-in was considered a random act of violence.
The residence on Wood Duck Street is part of Carters Mill Estates, a mobile home community about a half-mile south of Ridgeland’s Main Street. In November of last year, a 3-year-old boy in the same neighborhood was killed in an accidental shooting involving an unsecured handgun.
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