Cold Cases in South Carolina
ColdCaseIndex documents 17 cold cases in South Carolina, spanning 1944–2024. 7 of these cases remain fully unsolved. Each case page includes documented details, status, and information on how to submit a tip.
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All South Carolina Cases
Zelig Williams
Zelig Williams, a 28-year-old Broadway dancer who performed in Hamilton and MJ: The Musical, vanished on October 3, 2024, shortly after leaving his mother's home in Columbia, South Carolina. Minutes after he left, a frie
Murdaugh Financial Crimes
Beyond the murders, Alex Murdaugh stole over $8.7 million from clients, including vulnerable accident victims and the family of his dead housekeeper. He received an additional 27-year sentence for financial crimes.
Maggie & Paul Murdaugh
Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South Carolina attorney, murdered his wife Maggie and son Paul at their family hunting estate to cover up financial crimes. He was sentenced to life.
Mallory Beach
Mallory Beach was killed when Paul Murdaugh crashed a boat while drunk in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Paul was charged with BUI resulting in death but was murdered before trial.
Gloria Satterfield
Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield died after a fall at the Murdaugh home. Alex Murdaugh collected $4.3 million in insurance but stole the money from her sons.
Stephen Smith
Nineteen-year-old Stephen Smith was found dead on a rural Hampton County road. His death was ruled a hit-and-run but showed no vehicle evidence. Multiple witnesses named a Murdaugh connection.
Walter Scott
Walter Scott was shot in the back and killed while fleeing from North Charleston police officer Michael Slager during a traffic stop. A bystander's video showed Slager shooting Scott in the back and then planting his Tas
Heather Elvis
Twenty-year-old Heather Elvis vanished from a boat landing in Myrtle Beach. The married couple she had been involved with, Sidney and Tammy Moorer, were convicted of kidnapping.
Brittanee Drexel
Seventeen-year-old Brittanee Drexel disappeared from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during spring break in 2009. In 2022, Raymond Moody pleaded guilty to her kidnapping, rape, and murder and was sentenced to life in prison
Blue Ridge Savings Bank Murders
Three bank employees were found dead in the utility room of a Blue Ridge Savings Bank in Greer, South Carolina. Sylvia Holtzclaw, James 'Eb' Barnes, and Margaret 'Maggie' Barnes were all killed. The bank had recently clo
Todd Kohlhepp Victims
Real estate agent Todd Kohlhepp was identified as a serial killer after a chained survivor was found on his rural South Carolina property in 2016. He confessed to seven murders including the unsolved 2003 Superbike Motor
Michael & Alex Smith
Susan Smith drowned her two sons Michael (3) and Alex (14 months) by rolling her car into John D. Long Lake. She initially claimed a Black carjacker took them.
Dail Dinwiddie
Dail Dinwiddie, a 23-year-old art history graduate, vanished in Columbia, South Carolina, in the early hours of September 24, 1992, after attending a U2 concert and visiting a Five Points nightclub. Despite more than 1,0
Shari Smith
Seventeen-year-old Shari Smith was abducted and killed in Saluda County, South Carolina. Larry Gene Bell kidnapped and killed Shari and later a nine-year-old girl, Debra May Helmick. Bell was convicted and executed in 19
Sumter County Does
A young couple was found shot to death on a rural road near Sumter, South Carolina. They remained unidentified for 45 years until DNA genealogy identified them in 2021 as James Paul Freund and Pamela Mae Buckley, both fr
Sumter County Does (Pamela Buckley & James Freund)
On August 9, 1976, a truck driver found a man and a woman shot to death beside Locklair Road, a rural dirt road in Sumter County, South Carolina. The victims remained unidentified for nearly 45 years until the DNA Doe Pr
Betty June Binnicker & Mary Emma Thames
Two young girls were found murdered in Alcolu, South Carolina. George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy, was arrested, tried, and executed in 83 days — the youngest person executed in the 20th century US. In 2014, a j