A 21-year-old man from the La Crosse area has died after being shot in South Hill. Jamarion Xavier Patillo was pronounced dead at VCU Medical Center in Richmond following the Sept. 30, 2026, shooting in the 800 block of Powell Drive, and as of early October, police had made no arrest.
Officers Found Victim With Life-Threatening Wounds
According to SoVaNOW, South Hill police officers were dispatched to Powell Drive after a report of a gunshot and found an adult male suffering from life-threatening gunshot wounds. Officers transported him to VCU Medical Center, where the South Hill Police Department later reported that Patillo was pronounced dead. Detectives recovered multiple items of evidence at the scene and located and interviewed people believed to have been involved, the outlet reported.
Police said preliminary information suggested the shooting was an isolated incident that posed no known threat to the public. South Hill Police Chief Ryan Durham said investigators continue to follow up on leads and gather information, though he declined to discuss what police believe may have led to the shooting, and the department is withholding details about what investigators think triggered the incident, per the same account.
Earlier Shooting on Same Block
A previous shooting had occurred on the same stretch of Powell Drive more than a year earlier. On Sept. 22, 2025, Mecklenburg County Emergency Communications received a report of multiple gunshots outside an apartment building on the block at around 9 p.m., according to wric.com. That shooting injured 23-year-old South Hill resident Elijah Seward, whose wounds were considered non-life-threatening once he arrived at VCU/CMH Hospital. Investigators in that earlier case interviewed witnesses and recovered evidence connected to the shooting, and that investigation remained ongoing as well.
Both investigations remain open, and detectives are working to piece together what happened on the block.
Community Asked to Come Forward
The South Hill Police Department has asked anyone with information about either incident to call 434-447-3104. With no arrest made in Patillo's death, police are continuing to lean on tips from the public as the investigation stays active.
The violence on Powell Drive arrives against a broader backdrop in Mecklenburg County, where a 2023 report from SoVaNOW found that violent crimes had fallen 64 percent overall between 2021 and 2022, even as the county saw an uptick in murders that year, with 51 violent crimes recorded in 2022. That earlier data does not speak to the current case, but it underscores how a single block seeing two shootings in little more than a week stands out against the county's broader trend.
