South Carolina’s first execution after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 was Joseph Carl Shaw, a former altar boy from Kentucky who enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Fort Jackson.
He raped and murdered two women, Betty Swank and Carlotta Hartness in Richland County, and ordered an accomplice, James Terry Roach to kill Hartness’ boyfriend in 1977.
The execution was carried out at Central Correctional Institution by electric chair in 1985. Roach was the second to be executed in 1986.
Since then, 41 men have been executed, 36 through lethal injection. Seven in the electric chair. In all, 25 were white, 25 black and one Native American. Roach, at 25, was the youngest.
Donald Henry “PeeWee” Gaskins was the oldest at 58 when he was executed in 1991. Gaskins, known as the meanest man in America, was one of the South’s most prolific serial killers, including the murder of his niece, a cannibal and sadist who escaped the death penalty once but was sentenced to die later after killing a fellow Death Row inmate.
Here is a list of the other murderers who have been executed. The list was compiled using information from murderpedia.org and news stories from the time of each execution.
- Ronald Rusty Woomer, 35, executed on April 27, 1990, murdered Della Louis Sellers after kidnapping her from a Pawleys Island convenience store in 1979. He was convicted of killing and raping Sellers but also accused of killing John Turner, 67; Arnie Richardson, 27; and Earldean Wright, 35; and maimed the woman working with Sellers.
- Sylvester Lewis Adams, 39, executed on Aug. 18, 1995, strangled his 16-year old neighbor in 1979 after trying to rob him. Adams was the first to die by lethal injection in South Carolina.
- Robert South, 51, executed on May 31, 1996, killed West Columbia police Officer Daniel Cogburn in a drive by shooting in 1983. Cogburn had been on the job for four days.
- Fred H. Kornahrens III, 47, executed on July 19, 1996, killed his ex-wife, Patti Jo Kornahrens; her stepson Jason Avant, and her father Harry Wilkerson in 1985 in Charleston County.
- Michael Rian Torrence, 35, executed on Sept. 6, 1996, murdered Dennis Lollis, Charles Bush, and Cynthia Williams in 1987 in Lexington County. He used various forms of strangulation, including a dog chain, stabbed and shot his victims.
- Larry Gene Bell, 46, executed on Oct. 4, 1996, killed 17-year-old Sharon “Shari” Faye Smith and taunted her parents in phone calls and 9-year-old Debra May Helmick in Lexington County. Bell called Helmick’s parents to say where her body was. Both were believed to have been suffocated with duct tape.
- Doyle Cecil Lucas, 41, executed Nov. 15, 1996, robbed and killed Bill Rayfield 65, and Mr. Rayfield’s 64-year-old wife, Evelyn, at their Rock Hill home in 1983.
- Frank Middleton Jr., 33, executed Nov. 22, 1996, escaped from prison work crew and raped and murdered Shirley Mae Mack, a 49-year-old night-shift cook in 1984 and killed another woman, Janell Garner, in Charleston County.
- Michael Eugene Elkins, 41, executed June 13, 1997, convicted of robbing and killing Patricia Whitt, 59, of Largo, Florida, on July 9, 1990, after she stopped to help him along Interstate 95 near the Georgia border.
- Earl Matthews Jr., 32, executed Nov. 7, 1997, murdered 16-year-old Lucia Aimar during a botched robbery attempt in 1984 in Charleston County.
- John David Arnold Jr., 43, executed March 6, 1998, strangled Betty Gardner with a garden hose in Beaufort County in 1978. Arnold, who was white, carved KKK into the body of Gardner who was black.
- John Herman Plath, 43, executed July 10, 1998, an accomplice to John David Arnold in the strangulation of Betty Gardner.
- Sammy Roberts, 40, executed Sept. 25, 1998, robbed and murdered Bill Spain, Kenneth Krause, and Louis Cakley in Berkeley County in 1980.
- Larry Gilbert, 43, and co-conspirator J.D. Gleaton, 53, were both executed on Dec. 4, 1998, murdering gas station owner Ralph Stoudemire in Lexington County.
- Louis Joe Truesdale Jr., 40, executed Dec. 11, 1980, killed 18-year-old Rebecca Ann Eudy after abducting her from a grocery store parking lot in Lancaster County.
- Andrew Lavern Smith, 38, executed Dec. 18, 1998, repeatedly stabbed husband and wife Christy Johnson, 86, and Corrie Johnson, 82, in Anderson County, where he rented a house from them. They were Smith’s cousins.
- Ronnie Howard, 40, executed Jan. 8, 1999, suffocated Chinh Thi Nguyen Le, a 34-year-old Vietnamese refugee and mother of three, and stole her car in Greenville County. He was on parole for bank robbery when the murder took place.
- Joseph Ernest Atkins, 51, executed Jan. 22, 1999, murdered his father Benjamin Atkins, 75, and a 13-year-old neighbor girl, Karen Patterson, five years after being paroled for murdering his brother in North Charleston.
- Leroy Joseph Drayton, 44, executed Nov. 12, 1999, murdered 19-year-old Charleston County gas station clerk Rhonda Darlene Smith.
- David Rocheville, 31, executed Dec. 3, 1999, murdered movie theater workers Alex Hopps and James Todd Green in Spartanburg County in 1991.
- Kevin Dean Young, 32, executed Nov. 3, 2000, robbed and shot 35-year-old Dennis Ray Hepler, an elementary school principal in Anderson County on Aug. 31, 1988.
- Richard Charles Johnson, 39, executed May 3, 2002, shot state Highway Patrol Trooper Bruce Smalls during a 1985 traffic stop on I-95 in Jasper County and Daniel Swanson, who picked him up hitchhiking.
- Anthony Green, 37, executed Aug. 23, 2002, shot Susan Babich as she returned to her car after she shopped at Charles Towne Square Shopping Mall in Charleston in 1987. He then stole her pocketbook.
- Michael Joseph Passaro, 40, executed Sept. 13, 2002, doused the inside of his car with gasoline and set it on fire with 2-year-old daughter, Maggie, strapped in her car seat outside his wife’s condo in Horry County.
- David Clayton Hill, 39, executed March 19, 2004, shot Georgetown Police Officer Spencer Guerry during a traffic stop.
- Jerry Bridwell McWee, 51, executed April 16, 2004, shot John Perry, an Aiken County convenience store employee, during a robbery. McWee got $350. Jason Scott Byram, 38, executed April 23, 2004, broke in and stabbed special education teacher Julie Johnson in her Columbia home as her husband and children slept upstairs.
- James Neil Tucker, 47, executed May 28, 2004, killed Rosa Lee Dolly Oakley and Shannon Mellon looking for money.
- Richard Longworth, 36, co-conspirator to David Rocheville, executed April 15, 2005 in the deaths of movie theater employees Alex Hopps and James Todd Green.
- Hastings Arthur Wise, 51, executed Nov. 4, 2005, killed former coworkers David Moore, 30; Esther Sheryl Wood, 27; Charles Griffith, 50; and Ernest L. Filyaw, 31 at Aiken Lawn Mower Ignition Plant in 1997.
- Shawn Paul Humphries, 33, executed Dec. 2, 2005, shot Dickie Smith at Max-Saver convenience store in Greenville County.
- William Ernest Downs Jr., 39, executed July 14, 2006, strangled 6-year-old Keenan O’Mailia, who was riding his bicycle near Downs’ Aiken home. Calvin Alphonso Shuler, 40, executed June 22, 2007, shot armored car driver James Brooks in 1997 in Dorchester County.
- David Mark Hill, 48, executed June 6, 2008, shot his family’s case worker and two other employees after losing custody of his children at the Aiken County Department of Social Services office in North Augusta. Killed were James Riddle, Josie Curry, and Michael Gregory.
- James Earl Reed, 49, executed June 20, 2008, shot his ex-girlfriend’s parents, Barbara Lafayette and Joseph Lafayette in Charleston County.
- Joseph Martin Luther Gardner, 38, executed Dec. 5, 2008, tortured and shot 25-year-old Melissa McLauchlin, a stranger picked up as she walked on a Dorchester County road.
- Luke A. Williams, 56, executed Feb. 20, 2009, beat, strangled and set on fire his wife Linda Williams and 12-year-old son Shaun Williams in 1991 in Edgefield County to collect insurance money.
- Thomas Treshawn Ivey, 34, executed May 8, 2009, after escaping an Alabama jail, Ivey stole a truck and drove to Columbia where he and an accomplice kidnapped businessman Robert Montgomery. Ivey shot Montgomery in the head and chest, leaving his body to be discovered by hunters. Then two days later, in Orangeburg, Ivey shot Orangeburg Police Sergeant Tommy Harrison five times.
- Jeffrey Brian Motts, 36, executed May 6, 2011, strangled his Perry Correctional Institution cellmate Charles “Chuck” Martin in 2005. Motts was serving a life sentence for a 1995 double murder of 79-year-old Clyde Camby and his 73-year-old great-aunt Etta Osteen.
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