Three Arrested, Fourth Sought in Targeted Shooting That Killed 7-Month-Old Spartanburg Baby

More than a year after a 7-month-old boy was fatally shot while sleeping next to his mother in a targeted, multi-shooter attack on a Spartanburg, South Carolina apartment, investigators have announced the arrests of three people in connection with the killing, with a fourth suspect still being actively sought as the case finally moves toward prosecution.

Christopher Mallory and Darius Wright, both adults, along with an unnamed juvenile, have been arrested and charged in the August 2025 shooting death of Zymir Demarco Smith, according to the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office. Both adult suspects face murder charges, along with charges of discharging a firearm into a dwelling and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and both have been denied bond.

A Targeted Attack in the Early Morning Hours

The shooting unfolded in the early morning hours of August 2, 2025, when police responded to a 911 call at approximately 4:15 a.m. to an apartment at 314 Collins Avenue, Apartment B, in Spartanburg. What they found was a horrifying scene: multiple shooters had opened fire on both levels of the residence from different directions, with investigators ultimately recovering 17 shell casings from the scene, a volume of gunfire that speaks to just how sustained and coordinated the attack appears to have been.

Amid that barrage, 7-month-old Zymir Demarco Smith was struck in the neck while sleeping in bed next to his mother, one of the shooting’s rounds finding the infant amid what investigators say was a deliberate, targeted assault on the apartment rather than random gunfire. The Spartanburg Police Department has consistently described the shooting as targeted rather than a random act of violence, a characterization that has only deepened the horror of the case given that an innocent infant ended up among the casualties of whatever dispute prompted the attack.

A Yearlong Wait for Arrests

The more than 13-month gap between the shooting and the announcement of arrests underscores just how difficult the investigation proved for Spartanburg police and the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office, led by Solicitor Barry Barnette, who ultimately announced the charges against Mallory and Wright. Cases involving multiple shooters firing from different directions in the dark, as investigators say occurred here, often present significant challenges in definitively identifying each individual involved, even when there is little doubt that the attack itself was intentional and targeted.

During that extended investigative period, authorities offered an initial $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case, an incentive aimed at encouraging anyone with knowledge of the shooting to come forward even as the trail grew colder with each passing month. That the case ultimately resulted in multiple arrests suggests investigators were eventually able to develop the evidence and witness cooperation needed to move forward with charges.

Who Has Been Charged

Christopher Mallory and Darius Wright both face murder charges, along with counts of discharging a firearm into a dwelling and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, reflecting prosecutors’ view that both men bear direct responsibility for the gunfire that killed the infant. A third suspect, a juvenile whose identity has not been publicly disclosed in keeping with standard practice for minors facing charges, has also been arrested in connection with the shooting.

A fourth suspect remains at large, with investigators continuing to actively search for that individual as the case against the three already in custody begins moving forward. Anyone with information about the outstanding suspect has been asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC or the Spartanburg Police Department directly, keeping the door open for additional tips even after the first three arrests were announced.

A Suspect With a Troubling Pattern

Mallory’s arrest in the Zymir Smith case is not his only brush with serious violent crime allegations. He also faces charges in the November 2025 killing of 16-year-old Brodarrien Tate, as well as a separate attempted murder case, meaning that in the months following the infant’s death, Mallory is alleged to have been involved in at least one additional killing before ultimately being arrested and charged in the Collins Avenue shooting.

That pattern of alleged violent conduct across multiple cases raises difficult questions about whether earlier intervention might have prevented some of the additional violence attributed to Mallory in the time between the August 2025 shooting and his eventual arrest, though investigators have not publicly detailed exactly when he became a focus of the Zymir Smith investigation specifically.

A Mother’s Grief and a Community’s Response

In the aftermath of her son’s death, Zymir’s mother, Ebony Smith, turned to crowdfunding to cover funeral expenses, ultimately raising more than $11,000 through a GoFundMe campaign as the Spartanburg community rallied around a family facing every parent’s worst nightmare. The outpouring of financial support reflected the broader horror the case generated throughout the community, where the killing of an infant in what police describe as a targeted attack struck a particularly painful chord.

For more than a year, Ebony Smith and her family lived with the knowledge that whoever was responsible for her son’s death remained free, a painful limbo that has now at least partially been resolved with the arrests of Mallory, Wright, and the juvenile suspect, even as the search continues for the fourth person allegedly involved in the attack.

The Legal Road Ahead

With Mallory and Wright both denied bond, the case will now proceed through South Carolina’s Seventh Circuit court system, where prosecutors will need to present the evidence gathered over more than a year of investigation, including the physical evidence recovered from the scene — the 17 shell casings and whatever ballistic analysis has since been conducted — along with any witness testimony or additional evidence that led investigators to identify the suspects now in custody.

Given that Mallory already faces charges in a separate killing from November 2025, prosecutors may need to navigate multiple overlapping cases against him simultaneously, a complexity that could affect how quickly the Zymir Smith case moves through the court system compared to a more straightforward single-defendant prosecution.

A Case That Shook Spartanburg

The killing of an infant in a targeted, multi-shooter attack represents one of the more disturbing violent crimes to strike Spartanburg in recent memory, not only for the young age of the victim but for the apparent premeditation and coordination investigators say was involved in an assault that fired shots into both levels of an occupied residence. That such an attack could claim the life of a 7-month-old sleeping beside his mother has left lasting scars on a community still processing how such violence found its way into what should have been the safety of a family’s own home.

As the case against Mallory, Wright, and the juvenile suspect moves forward, and as investigators continue searching for the fourth person allegedly involved, Spartanburg residents will be watching closely to see whether the prosecution can deliver the accountability that Zymir Smith’s family has waited more than a year to see.

The Challenge of Prosecuting Multi-Shooter Cases

Cases involving multiple shooters firing simultaneously from different positions present unique prosecutorial challenges that go well beyond simply identifying who was present at the scene. Ballistics experts and investigators often must work to determine which specific weapon fired the round that proved fatal, a task complicated significantly when 17 shell casings from what appears to be several different firearms are recovered from a single location. Establishing which defendant’s shot actually killed Zymir Smith, as opposed to which defendants merely participated in the broader attack, could become a significant point of contention as the case proceeds toward trial.

South Carolina law does provide mechanisms, including accomplice liability theories, that can allow prosecutors to pursue murder charges against multiple participants in a coordinated shooting even when it cannot be definitively established whose bullet caused the fatal injury, provided prosecutors can show the defendants acted together with a shared intent to carry out the attack. That legal framework may prove significant as the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office builds its case against Mallory, Wright, and the juvenile suspect already in custody.

A Pattern of Violence in Spartanburg

The Zymir Smith case adds to a broader conversation in Spartanburg about gun violence involving young people, both as victims and as alleged perpetrators, a conversation that has only intensified given Mallory’s alleged involvement in the subsequent killing of 16-year-old Brodarrien Tate months after the infant’s death. Community leaders and law enforcement officials in Spartanburg have increasingly called for coordinated intervention strategies aimed at identifying and addressing violence before it escalates to the point of claiming additional victims, a goal that becomes considerably harder to achieve when a single individual is allegedly linked to multiple homicides across a period of just a few months.

For a mid-sized South Carolina city, absorbing back-to-back violent crime cases of this magnitude — one claiming the life of an infant, the other a teenager — has placed considerable strain on both the police department’s investigative resources and the broader community’s sense of safety, underscoring why the arrests announced in the Zymir Smith case carry significance well beyond the specifics of this single, deeply tragic shooting.

Sources

• Fox Carolina: Solicitor: 3 arrested, 4th sought in ‘targeted’ shooting that killed Spartanburg baby
• Hoodline: Spartanburg Baby Shooting: 3 Arrested, 4th Suspect Sought