Woman dies after Upper Marlboro domestic shooting, suspect found dead in South Carolina

A quiet Upper Marlboro block turned into a two-state domestic-violence case after Kayla Richardson died from gunshot wounds suffered outside her home in the 10400 block of Birdie Lane.

Prince George’s County police said Richardson, 29, was shot shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, June 2. Officers were called to the scene around 7:15 a.m., and investigators stayed there for at least five hours as they processed the neighborhood and tried to reconstruct what happened. Richardson was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but later died from her injuries.

Police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Dante Morris of Fort Mill, South Carolina, and said Morris and Richardson had previously been in a relationship. Investigators believe Morris drove back to South Carolina after the shooting. Authorities later found him dead there from what they described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The case leaves detectives with a grim set of unanswered questions: what was happening in the relationship before the shooting, whether there were warning signs, and whether any earlier intervention might have changed the outcome. Even with Morris dead, the killing remains a serious public-safety and domestic-violence case for Prince George’s County because it shows how fast a relationship conflict can turn fatal and cross state lines before investigators can intervene.

Neighbors told reporters the area is usually quiet, underscoring how jarring the violence was in a residential Upper Marlboro community. That shock is part of the larger pattern in domestic-violence homicides, where danger often unfolds behind closed doors before spilling into public view.

Prince George’s County defines domestic violence as behavior used by one person in a relationship to control another. County officials say domestic violence affects about one million people in the United States every year, and 85% of victims are women. Local help is available through the Prince George’s County Police Domestic Violence Unit, the Prince George’s County Family Justice Center and Community Crisis Services, Inc., which says it is the county’s lead domestic-violence agency and provides 24/7 crisis support, emergency shelter, counseling, safety planning and survivor support.

The killing also comes against a broader drop in county violence. Prince George’s County police statistics show 58 homicides in 2025, down 41% from 2024, while violent crime overall fell 21% and carjackings dropped 57%. That makes Richardson’s death stand out all the more: a domestic shooting that cut against a countywide decline and left one more family and one more neighborhood trying to make sense of preventable loss. Police asked anyone with information to contact detectives at 301-516-2512.