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10 Famous Murders In South Carolina

South Carolina has exposed several murders which involve the unlawful killing of another human being. These murderers murder their victims with firearms, stabbing them, poisoning, burning, suffocating and even striking because maybe they have lost their anger or they’re just doing it for fun or financial reward. Most of these crimes are considered to be more serious thus the murderers are usually convicted of murder or exposed to severe punishments but in most cases, the murderers are punished by the law to face a long-term sentence in prison, capital punishment or a life sentence in prison. Therefore, this article is going to explore more about the murder instances that happened in South Carolina.

1 The murder of Tiffany Marie Souers

Crime Scene tape by Kat Wilcox-

Jerry Buck Inman, stood trial for kidnapping, raping and murdering Tiffany Marie Souers. Souers was a student from St Louis and was studying civil engineering as well as participating in charity work. Jerry entered her apartment at 1 a.m. on the fateful night of May 2006. Tiffany fought him but Jerry tied her hands, raped her and strangled her with a bikini top. Tiffany was found dead by her roommate. During his trials, Buck confirmed that he wanted to be executed for his crimes but he, later on, requested the sentence to be withdrawn and the state’s Supreme Court upheld it in 2011.

2. Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins Jr

Donald Henry was a renowned serial killer and rapist in South Carolina who was found guilty of 15 confirmed and 110 claimed murders which were more than any other murder cases in South Carolina. He killed his victims by shooting, stabbing, drowning and strangling them. He will then transport his victims by hearse which he drove and buried them in shallow graves in Southern Florence County where he was raised. Among the 15 victims killed were six teenagers, a pregnant mother, his niece and a 2-year-old girl. In 1991 he was sentenced to death and put to death by way of the electric chair.

3. Lee Roy Martin

Lee Roy aka Gaffney Strangler killed a total of 4 people that is 2 women and 2 girls one of them being a 14-year-old girl. All these killings were done between 1967 and 1968. Lee Roy Martin sexually assaulted his victims and was later sentenced to life imprisonment while he was serving his life sentence at the Correctional Institution in Colombia, he was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate called Kenneth Marshall Rumsey on May 31, 1972.

4. Quincy Jason Allen

Quincy was born on November 7^th 1979 and was well known to be a serial murderer in South Carolina. Between July and August 2002, Quincy was proven guilty of killing four people during a crime spree 2002. The four people that he killed include his employee’s friend at a Texas Roadhouse, a homeless man in Colombia whom he shot but the man survived the gunshot and the other two he killed during a gas station robbery. To ensure that he was not suspected by the law, Allen set the victims’ items that include cars and their homes on fire. While in prison Allen still tried to kill a correctional officer during his escape attempt.

Quincy was sentenced to death and the execution was to be done in 2010 but the South Carolina Supreme Court announced the stay of his execution and they set new dates. Quincy’s death sentence was overturned on 26^th July 2022.

5. The murder of Alex and Michael

Susan on October 25^th 1994 was found guilty of killing her two sons that are Alex a 14-month-old and Michael a 3-year-old by drowning them in the John D. Long Lake. Susan falsely confessed at the court that she was stopped by a black man at a red light and he forced her out of the car at a gunpoint and took away her sons and drove off with them. Smith, later on, confessed after a week of searching for the boys that he drowned them in the lake. Susan was then sentenced to life in prison and was permitted for parole on November 4, 2024.

6. Sharon Faye Smith

Larry Eugene Bell was convicted of kidnapping 17-year-old Sharon Faye Smith aka Shari while she was checking their mailbox. Her body was found in Saluda County where Bell had dumped her and had instructed the police where to find the body. Bell then kidnapped a 9-year-old Debra May Helmick near old Percival Road where she was playing with her 3-year-old brother. He was also suspected of the disappearance of a young woman Charlotte. Weirdly during his trials, Bell had delusions of being Jesus Christ and he never confessed why he killed those young girls. He rejected lethal injection and chose to be electrocuted in 1996.

 7. The murder of Jonathan Lemuel Lara, Sandi and Timott Ott

These murder cases from Dallen Bounds were very traumatizing to the nation. Dallen tied a Radio Shack employee Jonathan Lemuel Lara to a chair and stabbed him in the neck with a screwdriver in the back room on June 26, 1999. Later on, on December 22, 1999, Dallen killed a 30-year-old flower shop clerk, Karen Moore Hayden by slitting her throat and leaving her face down in a back storage room and on December 1999 he killed Sandi Roberts Ott and her ex-husband Timoth Ott in Easley. He took refuge in the neighbourhood holding two women hostage and shortly thereafter he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

8. Patrick Tracy Burris

Patrick Burris committed six murders over six days. His first murder involved a couple who were approached by him that he wanted to buy hay only to shoot one of them; Kline Cash. After only four days he shot Hazel Linder and her daughter, Gena Linder Parker. As if that didn’t scare him, the next day he went and killed one Stephen Tyler at his family’s appliance and furniture store and when his 15-year-old daughter came to check on him, Burris shot and injured her. Burris was shot by the police during a shootout in Dallas, North Carolina on July 6, 2009.

9. William Pierce Jr

William Pierce committed a series of at least 9 murders one of them being of an 18-year-old Ann Goodwin who was sexually assaulted and shot by William when he was doing a robbery in their home. The other crime was Margaret Peg Cuttino who went missing and later on her body was found 10 miles away from where she was last seen. After Margaret’s disappearance, William drove to a service station and shot Joe fletcher who was an employee at the service station and he also stole $78 from the cash register. The next year after Joe’s death, William shot Lacey Tigpen to get rid of any witnesses when he was robbing a store and after 10 days he went ahead and abducted and sexually assaulted Helen Wilcox then shot her afterwards.

Vivian Miles a store owner was also killed by William and he also brutally beat her 5-year-old granddaughter but luckily, she survived. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment after he admitted that he was guilty.

10. Reinaldo Javier Rivera

Javier abducted, raped and killed four women in South Carolina and Georgia between 1999 and 2000. Melissa Faye Dingess was one of Reinaldo’s victims who disappeared without a trace and his skeletal remains were found in the woods. Also, 17-Year-old Tiffaney Shereese Wilson was murdered by Javier and he left her body in her carrier in front of a Georgia welcome centre across the state border.

Javier was also found guilty of killing an 18-year-old Tabitha Leigh Bosdell who also disappeared in similar circumstances to the previous victims. His last murder case involved a 21-year-old Marnie Marie Glista who was attacked in her home by Javier. He was convicted in one of those murders and sentenced to death and remains imprisoned in Georgia