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.
To find the cities in South Carolina with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita, we used Saturday Night Science to compare the FBI crime data on murders for the 42 cities in the Palmetto State with over 5,000 residents.
What city has the highest murder rate in South Carolina? The city with the highest murder rate in South Carolina is Chester with 77 murders per 100,000 people.
What is the city in South Carolina with highest number of murders? The city in South Carolina with the highest number of murders is North Charleston with 21 murders.
Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town in South Carolina ranked. There were ‘only’ 42 cities in South Carolina where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 19 places had no murder.
77 per 100k · #1 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Chester County, South Carolina
Chester is a small rural city in Chester County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,607 at the 2010 census, down from 6,476 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Chester County.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
65 per 100k · #2 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Marion County, South Carolina
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.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
46 per 100k · #3 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Newberry County, South Carolina
Newberry is a city in Newberry County, South Carolina, United States, in the Piedmont 43 miles northwest of Columbia. The charter was adopted in 1894. The population was 10,277 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Newberry County; at one time it was called Newberry Courthouse.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
43 per 100k · #4 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Lancaster County, South Carolina
The city of Lancaster is the county seat of Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States, located in the Charlotte Metropolitan Area. As of the United States Census of 2010, the city population was 9,134 but due to South Carolina’s strict annexation laws its actual population is well over twenty thousand people. The city was named after the famous House of Lancaster. Locally, Lancaster is pronounced LAYN-ks-tr, rather than the usual American pronunciation LAN-kas-tr. The modern British pronunciation is LANG-kas-tr.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
37 per 100k · #5 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Walterboro is a city in Colleton County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,398 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Colleton County. Walterboro is located 48 miles west of Charleston and is located near the ACE Basin region in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
31 per 100k · #6 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Marlboro County, South Carolina
Bennettsville is a city located in the U.S. state of South Carolina on the Great Pee Dee River. As the county seat of Marlboro County, Bennettsville is noted for its historic homes and buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries – including the Bennettsville Historic District which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
30 per 100k · #7 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Orangeburg County, South Carolina
Orangeburg, also known as The Garden City, is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population of the city was 13,964 according to the 2010 United States census. The city is located 37 miles southeast of Columbia, on the north fork of the Edisto River in the Piedmont area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
26 per 100k · #8 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Laurens County, South Carolina
Clinton is a city in Laurens County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 8,490 as of the 2010 census. It is part of the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area. Clinton is the home of Presbyterian College.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
26 per 100k · #9 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Union County, South Carolina
The city of Union is the county seat of Union County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 8,393 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Union Micropolitan Statistical Area, an which includes all of Union County and which is further included in the greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina Combined Statistical Area.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
24 per 100k · #10 highest murder rate in South Carolina
Located in
Sumter County, South Carolina
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.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is South Carolina’s statewide median.
On the map
Where South Carolina’s murders happen
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: 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 wanted to rely on something other than speculation and opinion. Instead, we used Saturday Night Science to compare 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 in each city annually.
We only looked at 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 42 cities to rank.
We took the number of murders per capita as the ranking factor. The place with the most murders per capita based on the most recent data is Chester. It is our eleventh time ranking the places with the most murders per capita in South Carolina. We updated the list for 2026.
The full plate
Murder Rates By City In South Carolina
Click any column to sort. Search by city name.
| Rank | City | Population | Murders | Murders/100K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chester | 5,212 | 4 | 77 |
| 2 | Marion | 6,123 | 4 | 65 |
| 3 | Newberry | 10,926 | 5 | 46 |
| 4 | Lancaster | 9,305 | 4 | 43 |
| 5 | Walterboro | 5,465 | 2 | 37 |
| 6 | Bennettsville | 6,430 | 2 | 31 |
| 7 | Orangeburg | 13,320 | 4 | 30 |
| 8 | Clinton | 7,743 | 2 | 26 |
| 9 | Union | 7,795 | 2 | 26 |
| 10 | Sumter | 42,551 | 10 | 24 |
| 11 | North Charleston | 123,511 | 21 | 17 |
| 12 | Lake City | 5,937 | 1 | 17 |
| 13 | Darlington | 6,013 | 1 | 17 |
| 14 | West Columbia | 18,591 | 3 | 16 |
| 15 | Gaffney | 12,399 | 2 | 16 |
| 16 | Florence | 40,781 | 6 | 15 |
| 17 | Hardeeville | 13,740 | 2 | 15 |
| 18 | Hartsville | 7,389 | 1 | 14 |
| 19 | Greenwood | 22,478 | 3 | 13 |
| 20 | Myrtle Beach | 41,022 | 5 | 12 |
| 21 | Aiken | 33,221 | 4 | 12 |
| 22 | Rock Hill | 75,975 | 9 | 12 |
| 23 | Camden | 8,651 | 1 | 12 |
| 24 | Moncks Corner | 17,854 | 2 | 11 |
| 25 | Travelers Rest | 9,088 | 1 | 11 |
| 26 | Seneca | 9,106 | 1 | 11 |
| 27 | York | 9,366 | 1 | 11 |
| 28 | Conway | 29,015 | 3 | 10 |
| 29 | Forest Acres | 10,309 | 1 | 10 |
| 30 | Columbia | 144,559 | 14 | 10 |
| 31 | Greenville | 73,405 | 7 | 10 |
| 32 | Goose Creek | 50,294 | 4 | 8 |
| 33 | Cayce | 13,628 | 1 | 7 |
| 34 | Beaufort | 13,937 | 1 | 7 |
| 35 | Mauldin | 29,180 | 2 | 7 |
| 36 | Bluffton | 37,927 | 2 | 5 |
| 37 | Spartanburg | 39,186 | 2 | 5 |
| 38 | Charleston | 156,898 | 7 | 4 |
| 39 | Summerville | 52,148 | 2 | 4 |
| 40 | Easley | 27,617 | 1 | 4 |
| 41 | Anderson | 30,150 | 1 | 3 |
| 42 | Greer | 47,690 | 1 | 2 |
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report. 42 South Carolina cities that reported a murder.
Summary
Summary: The Places With The Most Murders In South Carolina For 2026
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.
The cities with the highest murder per capita in South Carolina are Chester, Marion, Newberry, Lancaster, Walterboro, Bennettsville, Orangeburg, Clinton, Union, and Sumter.
