Life in prison plus 30 years: Jury convicts Rock Hill man of deadly 2019 crime spree

A Rock Hill man already serving life in a South Carolina prison received another life term plus 30 years after a jury found him guilty last week of a 2019 violent crime spree that left one woman dead and two other women maimed.

Marques Quantez Heath, 40, was convicted Aug. 20 after a trial at the Moss Justice Center that spanned four days, according to prosecutors and court records. The jury found Heath guilty of murder, two counts of attempted murder, three counts of kidnapping, one count of assault and battery and four weapons charges, records show.

The jury deliberated for about four hours in the case where Heath targeted three women he knew from previous relationships, prosecutors said.

“This verdict ensures Mr. Heath will never be out on the streets of York County again,” 16th Circuit Assistant Deputy Solicitor Chris Epting said.

York County Judge Bill McKinnon sentenced Heath to a consecutive life term for the murder and the additional 30 years for the other charges.

Heath shot the three women at two different houses in Rock Hill in the 2019 violence, said Epting, who prosecuted the case with senior solicitor Dan Porter.

Shanijela Shamichael Williams, 20, died at a Leach Road home where Bethany Farrar was wounded. Another person was hit with a hammer, prosecutors said. At a second house miles away on Farlow Street, Heath shot Laquata Wilson before he fled to North Carolina. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police caught him near South Boulevard.

Prosecutors praised the courage of the surviving victims who testified at the trial.

Heath is already serving a life sentence without parole from December 2019 for drugs and weapons in Rock Hill. Those convictions were from a 2018 arrest.

Heath still remains accused of using a shank to stab his cellmate to death at a Columbia prison last year, according to arrest warrants released in March by the S.C. Department of Corrections. That case is separate and still pending in Richland County.