Do you live in one of the murder capitals of South Carolina?
We all watch the news with horror when we hear about a homicide that happens not that far away from us. While a murder just blocks or even a couple of towns away from your house would make anyone uneasy, in the long run, most likely, where you live is relatively safe.
So we wanted to get the facts straight and dug into the FBI crime data in order to identify the places with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita in South Carolina.
The result is the 10 Murder Capitals of the Palmetto State for 2019:
- North Charleston (Photos)
- Myrtle Beach (Photos)
- Florence (Photos)
- Gaffney (Photos)
- Darlington (Photos)
- Rock Hill (Photos)
- Hardeeville (Photos)
- Sumter (Photos)
- Dillon (Photos)
- Marion (Photos)
The city with highest murder rate in South Carolina? That would be Darlington with 32.8 murders per 100,000 people.
While the city with highest number of murders period? North Charleston with 35.
Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town ranked. There were ‘only’ 29 cities in South Carolina where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 29 places had no murder.
If you’re curious, here are the places in South Carolina which had the least murder chances for its residents, based on population: Mauldin, Cayce, Beaufort, Mount Pleasant, Orangeburg.
For more reading on the Palmetto State check out:
- 10 Best Places To Live In South Carolina
- 10 Cheapest Places To Live In South Carolina
- 10 Most Dangerous Cities In South Carolina
How we calculated the murder capitals of South Carolina
While there are surveys and public polls on what cities in a state are the most dangerous, we didn’t want to rely on speculation and opinion. Instead, we looked at the hard numbers from the FBI’s last year of reporting. Specifically, we analyzed the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report which summarizes the number of murders that may happen in each city per year.
We only looked every single city in South Carolina for which FBI data was available for the most recent FBI Crime In The United States. That left us with 29 cities to rank.
Finally, averaged two scores:
- The raw number of murders in each city
- The murders per person
We felt as if a small place with 2,500 people and two murders makes it a lot more dangerous than a city of 25,000 people with one murder.
We must note that this report is not an analysis of the effectiveness of local police departments. It simply states where murders occurred most frequently.
North Charleston is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, with incorporated areas in Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties. On June 12, 1972, the city of North Charleston was incorporated and was rated as the ninth-largest city in South Carolina. As of the 2010 Census, North Charleston had a population of 97,471, growing to an estimated population of 108,304 in 2015, and with a current area of more than 76.6 square miles. As defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, for use by the U.S. Census Bureau and other U.S. Government agencies for statistical purposes only, North Charleston is included within the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville metropolitan area and the Charleston-North Charleston urban area. North Charleston is one of the state’s major industrial centers and is the state’s top city in gross retail sales.
Myrtle Beach is a coastal city on the east coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is situated on the center of a large and continuous stretch of beach known as the Grand Strand in northeastern South Carolina.
Florence is a city in Florence County, South Carolina, United States. It is probably best known for being the intersection of I-95 and I-20, and the eastern terminus of I-20. It is the county seat of Florence County and the primary city within the Florence metropolitan area. The area forms the core of the historical “Pee Dee” region of South Carolina, which includes the eight counties of northeastern South Carolina, along with sections of southeastern North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population of Florence was 37,056, and the estimated population in 2015 was 38,228.
Gaffney is a town in and the seat of Cherokee County, South Carolina, United States, in the Upstate region of South Carolina. Gaffney is known as the “Peach Capital of South Carolina”. The population was 12,539 at the 2010 census, with an estimated population of 12,597 in 2014. It is the principal city of the Gaffney, South Carolina, Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Cherokee County and which is further included in the greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina Combined Statistical Area.
Darlington is a city located in Darlington County, South Carolina, United States. In 2016, its population was 6,117. It is the county seat of Darlington County. It is part of the Florence, South Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Rock Hill is the largest city in York County, South Carolina, United States and the fifth-largest city in the state. It is also the fourth-largest city of the Charlotte metropolitan area, behind Charlotte, Concord, and Gastonia. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 66,154. In 2016, the population had increased to 72,937.
Sumter is the county seat of Sumter County, South Carolina, United States. Known as the Sumter Metropolitan Statistical Area, the namesake county adjoins Clarendon and Lee to form the core of Sumter-Lee-Clarendon tri-county area of South Carolina, an area that includes the three counties in the east central Piedmont. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city’s population was 39,643 at the 2000 census. The 2010 census puts the city at 40,524.
Marion is a city in Marion County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 6,711 at the 2016 census. It is the county seat of Marion County. It is named for Francis Marion, a Brigadier General from South Carolina in the American Revolutionary War.
There You Have It – The Places With The Most Murders In South Carolina For 2019
If you’re looking at the places in South Carolina with the most murders, and where residents have the highest chances of being killed themselves, this is an accurate list. Again, these statistics are an indication of where crimes occur, not a statement about the effectiveness of the law enforcement in the areas they serve.
For more South Carolina reading, check out:
- 10 Best Places To Raise A Family In South Carolina
- These Are The 10 Fastest Growing Cities In South Carolina
- 10 Safest Places In South Carolina
- 10 Best Cities For Singles In South Carolina
- 10 Worst Places To Live In South Carolina
Detailed List Of The Places With The Most Murder In South Carolina For 2019
| Rank | City | Murders |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Charleston, SC | 35 |
| 2 | Myrtle Beach, SC | 5 |
| 3 | Florence, SC | 5 |
| 4 | Gaffney, SC | 3 |
| 5 | Darlington, SC | 2 |
| 6 | Rock Hill, SC | 9 |
| 7 | Hardeeville, SC | 2 |
| 8 | Sumter, SC | 5 |
| 9 | Dillon, SC | 2 |
| 10 | Marion, SC | 2 |
| 11 | Greenwood, SC | 3 |
| 12 | Columbia, SC | 10 |
| 13 | Newberry, SC | 2 |
| 14 | Summerville, SC | 4 |
| 15 | Charleston, SC | 6 |
| 16 | Chester, SC | 1 |
| 17 | Greenville, SC | 4 |
| 18 | Conway, SC | 2 |
| 19 | Goose Creek, SC | 3 |
| 20 | Hartsville, SC | 1 |
| 21 | Bennettsville, SC | 1 |
| 22 | Anderson, SC | 2 |
| 23 | Seneca, SC | 1 |
| 24 | Georgetown, SC | 1 |
| 25 | Orangeburg, SC | 1 |
| 26 | Mount Pleasant, SC | 2 |
| 27 | Beaufort, SC | 1 |
| 28 | Cayce, SC | 1 |
| 29 | Mauldin, SC | 1 |
Who doing the reporting? Bc I went to 3 funerals in the month of December alone in Huntsville SC….. I know they had at least 8 murders in 2018….and so far in 2019 it’s been 3….they really got the data wrong….. The numbers are way off for the city of Florence as well….. It’s sad around those parts…
Correction hartsville sc
Are we still going to pretend that all cultures are the same? Cross reference the murder stats with demographics & you have your answer as to why the outrageous level of violence exists in certain “communities”.
But we’ll all just keep pretending that “diversity is our strength”.
Wow, first off I agree that whoever does the reporting needs a new method because that list don’t even look right and I live in West Columbia, but I’d also like to add that the same ones compiling lists and statistics for the crime rate so they can supposedly come up with a effective method of making “communities” better actually have to attempt to do so. However the system was built the way it is to keep the ones on top on top and making money because that’s what it’s really about and the worst part is that we as a whole….as in ONE whole human race have been conditioned since birth to fall into that cycle and/or believe it to really be what it’s said it is….wake up. Then question if you were brought up in a community that didn’t figure out how to make the proper and correct support and resources to help develop the people of your community to be the strength that absolutely can be found in diversity obtainable, without any other underlying selfish greedy motive, then what do you really expect from that community that hasn’t been given any room to thrive and instead been placed in a cycle that perpetuates violence, and for most, it’s only a way to survive day to day……so don’t blame communities based on the majority of a ethnicity, race, poverty level within it as the problem, that’s the effect, the problem is people who are supposed to be backing that community are only backing it into a corner.