Missing teen found dead
Officials think victim was killed Friday by man shot to death Saturday
BISHOPVILLE — Tragedy continued to unfold in an investigation by Lee County authorities on Tuesday as they found the body of a Bishopville teen who had been missing since Friday.
Shakez Bracey was located about 2 p.m. in a wooded area about a mile from English Lane in Bishopville near the home of Dontrell Fortune, according to Lee County Sheriff Daniel Simon.
Simon said he had been shot one time in the head. Fortune was found dead inside a vehicle along Azalea Road late Saturday morning on the southeastern outskirts of Bishopville from a similar head wound. Yet in a tragic twist, he is now being identified as the triggerman behind Bracey’s death, officials indicated Tuesday.
Deputies took three more teens into custody Tuesday in connection with Bracey’s death, bringing the toll of murder suspects arrested this week in the county to nine. Ozhane Simon — no relation to Daniel Simon — was charged with murder and taken into custody at Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center. The 17-year-old was Fortune’s girlfriend.
Two other 16-year-old suspects, whose names were not immediately released because of their ages, will also face murder charges in the case. Sheriff Simon indicated they would be charged as adults and noted they were transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia.
“I’m just heartbroken because you’ve got too many lives that have just been destroyed,” Simon said. “You’ve got families being torn apart where young lives have been ruined and the community’s in an uproar because we’ve lost so many young kids. I just can’t grasp it.”
Investigators think Fortune killed Bracey after a dispute about money late Friday night and left his body in the wooded area near his home. Officials noted the two juveniles were accomplices in the shooting and identified them as Fortune’s brother and cousin. Simon indicated at least one of the suspects was related to Bracey.
The sheriff could not put a dollar amount on the currency over which the two teens were arguing but said it was not a large amount of money. Fortune died about 12 hours later in a connected shooting that has resulted in six arrests. Bonds for four murder suspects in that case were denied in a Sumter County magistrate courtroom Tuesday, about the time investigators found the missing teen’s body.