CCU student killed for his vehicle, court determines. What his shooter got for his murder

The trial of a Coastal Carolina University student’s killing concluded Thursday afternoon with one of the men charged in the case found guilty.

Abdullah Seifullah, 45, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was arrested for shooting and killing Coastal Carolina Student David Roldan-Dimas of York in 2023.

Seifullah was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison after the jury deliberated for almost three hours.

Roldan-Dimas was shot in a parking lot outside a Planet Fitness in Carolina Forest on June 19, 2023. The 20-year-old drove his black Chevrolet Camaro to the gym to work out with his girlfriend, Isabella Lima, and her brother, Caio Lima.

Seconds after his girlfriend and brother left, he was shot by Seifullah, evidence showed.

“(Roldan-Dimas) had a lot of beginnings ahead of him,” Senior Assistant Solicitor Leigh Andrew Waller said to the jury. “The judge will tell you we don’t have to prove motive, but what I offer to you is my belief that the motive was this car, David’s pride and joy.”

Waller then pointed to a wrecked Chevrolet Camaro on a TV screen used to present evidence to the jury.

Roldan-Dimas’ family was present for all three days of the trial, occasionally grabbing a tissue during witness testimony, including Isabella Lima who had been dating Roldan-Dimas for two weeks before he was murdered.

Seifullah allegedly worked with Branden Huertas, who pleaded guilty to accessory to murder earlier this week. Originally, both Seifullah and Huertas was set to be tried together.

Seifullah was sentenced to life for murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

Huertas was sentenced on Friday to 15 years in prison. The judge suspended that sentence upon Huertas’ service of 10 years in prison and three years on probation.

His aunt remembers how much Roldan-Dimas loved to dance, his aunt Anna Segovia-Dimas said after the trial Thursday.

He loved Camaros and she remembers his ambition, she said.

Her family had been waiting for the verdict for two years. She said she could hardly describe the feeling once the day finally came.

“Something has been missing, obviously we knew this day would come,” Segovia-Dimas said. “But I can’t even call it happiness even though we feel that. It’s just relief.”

The closing arguments

The prosecution brought in expert testimony from forensics experts at the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, video evidence and expert testimony on cell towers over the three days the trial took place.

The prosecution showed that Huertas and Seifullah stayed with Dana Maldanado in Myrtle Beach. Maldanado testified Wednesday that Huertas and Seifullah had wrecked the Nissan Sedan they took from Connecticut to Myrtle Beach.

“They were looking for a way back to Connecticut,” Waller said.

Huertas knew Maldanado before he and Seifullah stayed the night at her apartment.

Maldando let Huertas and Seifullah borrow her silver Dodge Charger while she looked for plane tickets back to Connecticut, text messages between Huertas and Maldando showed.

Huertas and Seifullah went to Planet Fitness on June 19, 2023, the same night Roldan-Dimas was killed, video evidence showed.

Video evidence shows a silver Dodge Charger driving out of the Planet Fitness parking lot as a Black man chases after it.

Caio Lima driving a blue truck pulls up to the man he describes as Black, wearing a mask, running down the street. Lima asked if he needs help.

Lima said the man yelled that someone stole his car. Lima followed the car and reported a theft to police.

Police tracked the license plate of the car to Maldanado’s apartment.

“Police here,” Maldanado texted Huertas minutes after Roldan-Dimas was shot. “Y’all f***** up.”

“They got our names?” Huertas texted back.

Seifullah most likely touched the handgun provided as evidence in the trial, according to SLED agent Katherine Leisy, who works in the division’s DNA lab.

Seifullah’s attorney Johnny Gardner argued that because SLED’s DNA swabs do not prove Seifullah touched the slide of the gun, there may be doubts whether he shot the gun or not.

Gardner also scrutinized security camera footage from June 19, 2023, provided by Detrick’s Car Wash next to the Carolina Forest Planet Fitness.

Other evidence included security camera footage from the day before showing Seifullah leaving the Planet Fitness locker room after showering.

“I wish [the witnesses] could have been a bit more descriptive,” Gardner said to the jury. “I saw some of you already figure it out.”

Gardner said footage inside the Planet Fitness shows Seifullah in “shiny white shoes,” but the man running away from the parking lot the next day does not have the same shoes on.

“People will say ‘he was Black, he had on dark clothes, he had on this, he had on that,’ but anytime someone is running, they look at their shoes,” Gardner said. “Don’t you think if someone saw someone running in a parking lot with shiny white shoes on, that would be the first thing they said?”

Isabella Lima shook her head at the end of Gardner’s closing argument while sitting with more than a dozen of Roldan-Dimas’ family members.

What happened the night Roldan-Dimas died?

“He was the most incredible man I have ever met,” Lima testified during the trial on Tuesday.

On June 19, 2023, Roldan-Dimas had worked a 13-hour shift at his job.

Lima said he was excited because he had been promoted from working on a machine outside to working inside—with air-conditioning.

The then 22-year-old had plans to go to the gym with her younger brother, Caio, and Roldan-Dimas insisted on coming with them. The three of them drove separately. The couple arrived first around 9 p.m.

Isabella Lima and Roldan-Dimas finished their workout and she planned to wait at Planet Fitness until her brother was done. Roldan-Dimas insisted on waiting with her, so the pair sat in her car and chatted.

Roldan-Dimas had been working all week, and hadn’t gotten a chance to see his dad for Father’s Day. He and Lima talked about visiting his family in York, and planned a date together when he came back to Conway that Friday.

When Caio Lima, who was then 17, finished his workout, Roldan-Dimas left Lima’s car and went to his Camaro.

“(Roldan-Dimas) kissed my forehead, said ‘I love you, I’ll see you Friday.’ He got out, he hugged my brother, they talked and then he got in his car,” Lima said, her voice breaking as she finished her sentence.

Within seconds, Lima and her brother heard a loud popping noise. Neither of them registered it as a gunshot.

While Caio Lima was driving home, he saw a silver Charger speed past him, he testified. Shortly after, he said he saw a Black man running in a nearby field.

He slowed down and tried to speak to the man, who, he said, appeared agitated and yelled that someone had stolen his car. Caio Lima offered the man a ride, but he declined it. He then began to follow the silver Charger. He called 911 and gave police the car’s license plate information.

He followed the man to report a stolen car to police before deciding to go home.

“Why did you decide to do that?” Assistant George Henry Martin asked Lima on June 3.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do,” Lima testified. “To help someone.”

As Lima was driving home, she called Roldan-Dimas three times, but he did not pick up. She found this odd. He always picked up her calls.

Worried about Roldan-Dimas, Isabella and Caio Lima, now both in her car, returned to Planet Fitness, where they found a number of police vehicles. Lima said she saw her boyfriend’s body on the ground.

Police officers told her he was asleep.

Lima asked police to tell Roldan-Dimas that she was there when he woke up. His family was far away, so she wanted him to know he had someone there.

“I was insisting a lot to the cops to let me get close to him because I didn’t want him to be alone,” Lima said. “(An officer) looked at me and was like ‘Ma’am he’s dead.’”

This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 3:59 PM.