Murder charge dismissed in 2009 Chester shooting

The murder charge against a man accused in a 2009 shooting in Chester has been dismissed.

The S.C. attorney general’s office dropped charges against Montell DeAngelo Cousar, 24, Monday, three years to the day after he was initially indicted by a state grand jury in the shooting death of 41-year-old Eddie Hall.

Hall was shot and killed in his Saluda Street home on Oct. 24, 2009, after a bullet passed through the wall and struck him in the head while he was lying on his couch. State investigators picked up the case as a gang-related slaying, and in 2012 Cousar was arrested, along with Keith Ramon Keener, and charged with murder.

In May, Keener pleaded guilty in a Chester courtroom to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. That sentence will be served concurrently with the 27-year sentence Keener is already serving for a 2010 shooting that resulted in a 24-year-old’s death.

A letter from the prosecutor to the Chester County sheriff said they were unable to proceed to trial because a key witness had changed his statement and others were not cooperating with investigators.

Cousar was jailed for two years with a $200,000 bond for the murder charge before he was released in February 2014.

In April of this year, Cousar was arrested again after police say he struck and injured two teenagers on a moped in McConnells and then fled the scene. He continues to be held without bond in the York County Detention Center on a hit-and-run charge.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Murder charge dismissed in 2009 Chester shooting."