Cold Cases in South Carolina
ColdCaseIndex documents 15 cases in South Carolina, dated 1944 to 2024. 6 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Betty June Binnicker & Mary Emma Thames (1944) and the most recent is Zelig Williams (2024).
- Unsolved 6 (40%)
- Partly resolved 1 (7%)
- Charges or trial pending 1 (7%)
- Solved or convicted 6 (40%)
- Closed without conviction 1 (7%)
Homicide clearance in South Carolina, 1965 to 2024
A homicide is "cleared" when police make an arrest or close it by exceptional means, so an uncleared case is not always an unsolved one. Source: Murder Accountability Project analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Report data, as published by Project: Cold Case. These are statewide totals and are separate from the ColdCaseIndex entries listed below.
By type
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.
Maggie & Paul Murdaugh
Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul, 22, were shot dead at the family's hunting estate in Islandton, South Carolina, on June 7, 2021.
Mallory Beach
Mallory Beach, 19, died when a boat carrying six young people struck a bridge at Archers Creek near Beaufort, South Carolina, early on February 24, 2019. Her body was found on March 3.
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 in July 2015. His death was initially treated as a hit-and-run, though no vehicle debris was found.
Walter Scott
Walter Scott, 50, was shot in the back and killed while running from North Charleston police officer Michael Slager after a traffic stop on April 4, 2015.
Heather Elvis
Heather Elvis, 20, disappeared in Horry County, South Carolina, on December 18, 2013; her car was found at Peachtree Landing. Tammy Moorer (October 2018) and Sidney Moorer (September 2019) were each convicted of kidnapping and…
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 people were shot dead during a robbery of the Blue Ridge Savings Bank in Greer, South Carolina, on May 16, 2003: teller Sylvia Holtzclaw and customers James "Eb" Barnes and his wife Margaret "Maggie" Barnes.
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.
Michael & Alex Smith
Michael Smith, 3, and his brother Alex, 14 months, drowned on October 25, 1994 when their mother, Susan Smith, let her car roll into John D. Long Lake near Union, South Carolina, with the boys strapped inside.
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.
Shari Smith
Seventeen-year-old Shari Faye Smith was abducted at gunpoint from the end of her family's driveway in Lexington County, South Carolina, on May 31, 1985, and her body was found days later in Saluda County.
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.
Betty June Binnicker & Mary Emma Thames
Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 8, were found killed in Alcolu, South Carolina, on March 23, 1944. George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy, was convicted in a one-day trial and executed on June 16, 1944.