On October 7, 2017, Royce Wayne James died after jumping out of his apartment window to escape a fire. Earlier that night, Marcus Shanks was seen by another resident throwing lighter fluid in a hallway. Marcus told her, "I'm going to set y'all on fire. Y'all need to get up out of here." When authorities arrived to deal with the burning apartment building, they found Royce lying face down in the grass under his third-floor window with severe burns all over his body.