FAIRFAX — Markayla Aiyonna Roberts lay in her grandparents’ bed, fending off her 10-month-old-cousin. Shrieking, the baby fashioned Markayla his punching bag and jungle gym, climbing over his cousin, swinging his little mitts and even nibbling her cheek.
Tasia Roberts leans against her car on Bayshore Drive on April 30 in Fairfax. The previous week, Roberts’ 14-year-old daughter Markayla was shot while sleeping in bed with her grandmother and two cousins after gunfire erupted outside the home. Markayla was pronounced dead at the hospital.
“He bit me!” Markayla, 14, mustered through her laughs on April 26.
The baby, perhaps realizing that he crossed a line, dismounted and sat by his cousin’s hip before staging his next advance. Still in recline, Markayla parried, deftly, but gently, pushing the baby on his back.
She leaned over him and taunted, “Look at you! Your face covered in drool.”
The two squealed together, a video shared by the family showed. It was their Friday night in Fairfax, the next-largest town in South Carolina’s least-populous county, Allendale.
Markayla fell asleep in that bed, facing a window inside the single-wide mobile home. She and her grandmother sandwiched her pint-sized tormentor. Her little sister slept at the foot of the bed.
Around 1:30 a.m., gunfire erupted outside.
Eschewing public records laws, the Fairfax Police Department refused to provide an incident report, which could provide details such as how many bullets were fired. But at least one struck Markayla. Two uncles rushed her to the local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
There were three shootings in Allendale County in three days: One on April 25 injured two people, an 11-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman, and two separate incidents on April 27. One wounded Allendale Police Sgt. James Hall Jr., who is recovering at home, and the other left Markayla dead.
Hall was investigating a report of gunshots mid-afternoon April 27 when his vehicle was shot multiple times from behind, police reported. A chief deputy arrived at the scene “seconds” later and the suspects fled. County Sheriff James Freeman took Hall to a local hospital, where he was airlifted to another medical center.
Police called the incident an attempted murder. Allendale Police Chief Lawrence Wiggins did not provide incident reports by deadline.
The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating all three incidents at the request of local agencies.
A family member of Markayla Roberts points to a hole in the side of their home on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, where a bullet entered. Markayla was killed in the shooting, the previous week in Fairfax.
Allendale responds to violence
The Allendale County School District increased security in the days following the shootings, including encouraging students to leave their backpacks at home. Superintendent Vallerie Cave declined to speak to The Post and Courier.
In a Facebook statement, Cave called for the community to address the root causes of violence.
“We need to stop talking about things and start having action,” said Fairfax Mayor Albert Sauls, who was elected in November after serving eight years on town council.
Sauls, 76, expressed frustration with failures in the justice system to convict, South Carolina’s new open-carry gun laws and violence filtering into Fairfax from other jurisdictions. He said the Fairfax Police Department does an “exceptional job” and mulled passing more restrictive gun ordinances.
Extracting critical information to solve crimes can be difficult when people are concerned about earning the label “snitch,” Wiggins said. Wiggins, 40, aims to create relationships while children are young to rebuild trust in law enforcement, a problem he said extended beyond Allendale. Prior to taking the helm in Allendale, Wiggins worked with SLED for more than five years.
“I’m not going to change a 40-year-old’s opinion about the police in two years, so I worry about the third graders,” he said.
Homes in disrepair and shuttered storefronts are common in Allendale County. A freight rail bisects arteries in the county’s two largest towns, briefly stalling traffic while the train lumbers through. Residents in the county are mostly Black, and the main source of employment is manufacturing. Allendale’s median household income of $37,000 a year is among the lowest in the state.
The travails plaguing Allendale County, however, did not stop Markayla’s family from coming together.
Cars sit parked at a railroad crossing along Highway 278 on April 30 in Fairfax.
A dancer, artist and officer
Parallel to her grandparents’ mobile home is another single-wide. Sharing an edge with each home is a shed.
Together, the buildings form a makeshift plaza with a burn barrel in the middle — grill on one side, and during barbecues, speakers on the other — placed on the stairs to her grandparents’ home. Grass covers most of the plaza, except by the speaker, where the family danced and milled, over time pounding the soil into a firm clay-colored patch.
Markayla was shy, but during parties, certain songs would coax her from her room and onto the dance floor. Then she would return to her shell, to read, look at her phone or draw.
A green tent provided by the local funeral home shaded the dance floor in the days after Markayla’s death. The family gathered in folding chairs, often sharing stories about Markayla or finding comfort in each other’s company.
Markayla also went by “Kayla,” “KK” and, an ode to her caregiving tendencies, “Mama KK.”
“We gave her that nickname at 5 or 6,” her 34-year-old aunt Courtney Smoakes told The Post and Courier. Markayla offered to feed and change her baby cousins not long after she ditched her own diapers. “Everything you need, she’s there for them.”
At school, she excelled. In February, Markayla earned her membership to the National Beta Club, which honors students for their achievement, character and leadership qualities. She was a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps member, where she enjoyed volunteer work, Smoakes said.
She didn’t want to join the military, said her mother, Tasia Roberts. Markayla joined JROTC to avoid physical education, but she shined.
On May 8, Markayla will be officially promoted to sergeant, an advancement planned prior to her death, said Senior Army Instructor Chief Jeffrey Gordon.
Sitting under the tent, Roberts flipped through her daughter’s academic accolades and drawings. Art connected Markayla and her mother. Roberts would challenge her daughter to weekly drawing competitions, wanting to maintain a connection while giving Markayla space.
“We would pick one day out of the week to see who could draw the best, and I knew she could beat me. I wanted to do it to keep an interaction with her because I knew with her having all those honor classes, that was a lot of work, so I just wanted to pick one day out of the week. Let’s do family time,” she said.
The daily routine reminded the family of Markayla.
Allendale County grieves after string of shootings leaves 14-year-old dead
A string of shootings in South Carolina's least populous county left a 14-year-old dead and three injured.
Tasia Roberts leans against her car on Bayshore Drive on April 30 in Fairfax. The previous week, Roberts’ 14-year-old daughter Markayla was shot while sleeping in bed with her grandmother and two cousins after gunfire erupted outside the home. Markayla was pronounced dead at the hospital.
A school bus pulled up to the home, dispatching three of her cousins. Patrick Morgan, Markayla’s uncle, looked on.
“It would have been her getting off right now,” he said.
Markayla was not supposed to sleep at her grandparents’ house that night. She was supposed to stay with her mother in their Sycamore home. For whatever reason, she chose to spend the evening with her baby cousin.
Markayla was struck by a bullet that could have hit anyone in that bed. Even in her sleep, her mother saw her last act as protective.
“She was a sacrifice that never should have happened,” Roberts said. “But she sacrificed herself for them.”
