The Item from Sumter, South Carolina • 17

The Second Front THE IIAIIS ITEM St MTKR SI MONDAY FEBRUARY II I Some Murders Confound But Cases Never Close (ITEM Photon found near the scene of the sl'ayings of two unidentified young persons near I 95 Aug 9 196 SGT HUGH A MATHIS JR of the Sumter County Sheriff's Department takes a plaster cast of tire tracks The transcript of the trial also quotes Gaskins as admitting to killing his niece Janice Kirby and burying her body in Florence County Kirby and Alsbrook disappeared together "In that particular case as far as concerned Pee Wee' did it Parnell said "He told me he did it showed us where the body was buried and admitted to it in court" GASKINS HAS NEVER BEEN tried for the Alsbrook slaying He's serving eight life sentences for murder and 3rd Circuit Solicitor Kirk McLeod said "it would be an-ticlimatic" to-try Gaskins on any more murder charges Gaskins is not expected to ever be paroled Parnell said A third unsolved case remains at an apparent dead end On Aug 29 1975 sheriff's investigators were called to the fashionable estate Marston-in Stateburg where they found the 70-year-old caretaker bound to a love seat with surgical tape naked from the waist down gagged with paper and tape and stabbed three times in the back Parnell speculates that Hattie Ahrenbeck knew her assailant had even let him or her inside the home the night before she was killed The front door was open and a half-eaten sandwich and a glass of milk were near the woman's body FRIENDS NEIGHBORS and associates all were questioned Had they seen anything'1 Heard anything7 How about the day before7 Anybody unusual around the Marston estate7 Al the questions drew blanks isolated out there and it was dark quite late so the chances (of anyone witnessing unusual activity! were slim" Parnell said Motive7 Possibly robbery except nothing was reported missing from the home Weapon7 Never found And no suspect The ease remins on the active list In almost five years however there have been no tangible developments and investigators are no more closer to finding Mrs Ahrenbeck's murderer Parnell said Case four At 8 a May 12 1976 a neighbor went to check on 82-year-old Madison McBride at his home at 35 Dant St McBride was found on a blood-splattered living room floor apparently beaten to death with a heavy blunt instrument Robbery was ruled out because nothing was missing from the home Hundreds of neighbors and acquaintances were interviewed All said they knew nothing about the homicide "I got a pretty good idea who might have done it but when you start solving some of these cases you just know a lot of things that are impossible to prove the hard evidence just there to get it to court" Parnell said "We quicker will tell caught Sooner By ED WILLIAMS ITEM Staff Writer An occasional tip or lead might filter across the desk And all those tips are followed all those leads checked out After all murder cases always remain on the list" never lose sight of Sheriff I Byrd Parnell says THE 1970S WEREN'T exactly a banner decade for peace and tranquility in the Sumter community But Sheriff Parnell says the 90 percent clearance rate on all homicides in the county by the sheriff department is a respectable track record "We don't take a back seat to anybody" he says But in the past decade Sumter County found itself with six slayings for which no one has been convicted Those cases remain open with their unknown motives undiscovered murder weapons and unfound witnesses The list begins in 1970 with two unrelated cases of apparent murder but no conviction in either Sheriff Parnell considers those cases solved for all practical purposes he thinks he knows who the killers were At 9 40 Sept 13 1970 50-year-old Willie Odom his two sons and wife were leaving a Ku Klux Klan rally at the Sumter Speedway grounds As Odom pulled his auto past the security gate several guards" detained his vehicle Odom tried to continue Shdts were fired Odom pulled a 22-caliber pistol and shot back A second later a 38-caliber bullet ripped through the rear windshield and struck him in the head killing him instantly TEN KLANSMEN FACED charges from robbery to accessory after the fact to murder first degree Parnell said the incident apparently revolved around a dispute between rival Klan factions A suspect was arrested for murder The state gathered witnesses studied testimmony and went to court But key state witnesses suddenly refused to cooperate or testify (witnesses I were pressured intimidated I believe" Parnell said without testimony there was no case Less than two months later on Nov 10 Patricia Ann Alsbrook disappeared She had gone for a ride with some girlfriends and later to Orangeburg with a local youth witnesses told investigators Six years later Prospect mass murderer Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins told investigators where to find the girl's decomposed body in a septic tank in the Concord community of eastern Sumter County During his trial on another murder charge in Florence County General Sessions Court in April 1978 Gaskins admitted killing Alsbrook and putting her body in the septic tank hear something every now and again of course the you get to it the better Sometimes they (the killers) the details to someone And sometimes get on some offense and then confess to everything or later someone slips up" Sheriff I Byrd Parnell No one has been charged in connection with McBride death Canada Irorn people who thought they ought know the victims The bodies ol the two victims remained in the funeral home a year No one claimed them and they were buried in the eemetary of the church Parnell attends THE MURDER WEAPON was lound the car ot a man arrested for DPI in Latta But' we couldn place him at the scene and he wasn telling us anything Parnell said The man later pleaded guilty in lederal court to jKixxession of a firearm with serial numbers obliterated No motive or suspect Even more curious however might be how two people described as "clean well-kept could simply disappear and no one miss them despite national publicity No family No friends No business associates It has the Sumter Sheriff 's Department stumped Case six On Oct 30 1978 Leo Curtis Bryant was found dead Ironi four gunshot wounds on a logging road near the Wateree River Bryant was lound slumped against the passenger side door of a 1974 pickup Bryant partner in an itinerant produce vending operation was charged with murder Those charges were later dropped We just aren ready to go to court Parnell said at the tune Investigation hasn concluded in that case Parnell said He is reluctant to talk about why charges were dropped and what new developments may have arisen in the Bryant case because ol the continuing investigation Parnell added that the Bryant case along with the disappearance of 26-year-old Maxie Graham ill August 1978 are the two rases most actively pursued at present NOT ONE OF SUMTER'S unsolved murders has been relegated to back burner status Parnell says but admits some of those cases may hr- difficult to solve We hear something every now and again Parnell says "We had 12 calls on the murder ol those two teens in 1979 Of course the quicker you can get to it the better Sometimes they i the killer i will tell the details to someone And sometimes they II get caught on some offense and then confess to everything he said Sooner or later someone slips up Sheriff investigators were confronted with the most perplexing and taxing of murder cases Aug 9 1976 The bodies' of a young man and woman presumably in their early 20s were found shot "execution style" on dusty Locklair Road near 1-95 in eastern Sumter County That case gained nationwide attention partly because of the efforts of the sheriff's department and partly because of the nature of the case "It's near impossible solving a rase when you can't identify the victims" Parnell said adding that the chances of solving that murder are "remote HAD THEY BEEN a couple on a Bicentennial tour of the during the summer7 Had they picked up hitchhikers who marched them from their car on that old dirt road and shot ttem7 Had they perhaps been hitchhikers themselves victimized by a motorist7 "They were a nice-looking couple clean well-kept" Painell said No man's wallet nor woman's purse was found The vehicle that drove them to the slaying site was never found Parnell said he doesn't believe robbery was the prime motive in the double slaying The man's Bulova Accutron watch and 14-karet ring were not taken Investigators attempted to track down the victims iden titles using the serial number on the watch and the initials on the ring Fingerprints were sent to the FBI An all-points bulletin and advisory were issued nationwide Photographs of the deceased were printed in newspapers nationwide The two bodies remained in a local funeral home awaiting positive identification Dental records of the victims were released to dental colleges dental publications and dental associations All efforts proved futile In desperation last year Parnell sought help from psychic Jean Dixon while she was in Sumter to give a lecture Dixon has vet to contact Parnell with any insights In the early stages of investigation the sheriff's department was flooded with calls from as far away as Texas and found the body of Leo Curtis Bryant on Oct 30 1978 on a logging road near the Wateree River No one has been convicted in connection with the slaying SUMTER COUNTY CORONER Bill Gamble in white coat and law enforcement officers look on as Investigator Ron Foisey of the sheriff's department prepares to take a photo of the truck in which was Amendment Leaves Future In Doubt "THIS IS A CLASSIC example of how we through the budget set up on agency without meaning to" Rep Jean Toal ITKM IlMitoi foster care review agency was closed out or "Clinched" the House had no choice but to insert the five employees and funding into the budget for the governor's office by a second amendment later in the week Rep Parker Evatt R-Riehland a co-sponsor of the amendment assured House members that he will see that two of the five employees the secretary and the bookkeeper are returned to Foster Care when the budget reaches the Senate Finance Committee And he took exception to the charge that the transfer was made because of personality clashes DAY I MAKE decisions in the House based on personality conflicts is the day I want to resign The Foster Care Review Board has provided a tremendous service to the people of South Carolina and I would not vote for any program detrimental to children he said "We should put personalities out of what we are doing he added Office of Child Advocacy should have been in the office of the governor all the time Under the corrected plan Parker said Ms Chappell and two social workers will be moved into the governor office and the present administrative assistant of the foster care review system will take over the direction of that agency which will be left with nine employees He said later that the whole emphasis of the child advocacy office has been foster care and that he would like to see its function expanded Many children are "locked up who did not commit a crime he said Others are forced to drop out of school because they must be removed from their homes and some district rules do not permit them to attend schools in districts in which their parents do not live ARE THE kinds of things that the Office ot Child Advocacy should be getting involved in he said But Ms Chappell said the child advocacy office was established to implement the Foster Care Review System a state agency which had been created in 1974 By MARCIA MILLIGAN ITEM Staff Writer Trying to rectify what Rep Jean Toal D-Richland called "a mistake made in the budget about three years ago the House last week left one small state agency uncertain about its future THE HOUSE AGREED Tuesday to a general appropriations bill amendment offered by Mrs Toal and others to remove the Child Advocacy office from the Children's Foster Care Review Board where it has operated since 1977 A second amendment was prepared to return child advocacy to the governor's office where it was created by executive order in 1975 Mrs Toal said the child advocacy office is operating illegally because its move to the Foster Care Review Board was made without statutory authority "This is a classic example of how we through the budget set up an agency without meaning to' she said To correct the situation Rep Toal's amendments transferred five employees including the agency director and associated funding from the Foster Care Review Board to the governor's office Rep Joyce Hearn R-Riehland argued unsuccessfully against the amendment saying that the foster care review system "works beautifully" and has served as a model for several other states She pleaded with the House not to "fix something that's not broken AND SHE SAID she had been told the move was an attempt to take care of the director which was motivated by personality conflicts between some House members and the agency director Barbara Chappell However the House approved the amendment which proved to contain a second mistake as two of the five employees are support staff which are necessary to the operation of the Foster Care Review Board Because that section of the budget dealing with the In addition she said the auditor oil ice assured her that it was legal for an agency in this case the Foster ('are Review Board to take on additional programs (child advocacy i if its board approves and if the General Assembly agrees to fund those programs Of the 12 employees in her office Ms Chappell said only one social worker is involved with the child advocacy program and she spends only about hall her time on it What puzzles the agency director is that no one contacted her before the amendment to transfer the employees was drawn up to ascertain how the office functioned and how many employees were assigned to the various programs They will be taking two people who are critically needed lor the foster care review program she said AND SHF DOES NOT believe the governor's office is a suitable base of operations for child advocacy If you work in the governor's office you have to reflect the governor position everything must be cleared through the governor stall You would always lie restrained because everything you do must meet with the governor approval she explained If the Office of Child Advocacy speaks out for hildren it cannot be concerned with the needs ol the governor Ms Chappell said By its nature the advocacy office is often embroiled in controversy and some governors may not be willing to take the heat she said The House amendments would preclude Ms Chappell remaining as direr tor ol the oster are Review Board because that administrator position has been downgraded considerably Irom the present agency director position But if their purpose is to remove her Ms Chappell suggests that her critics take their case to her board If I am the target thes should go before my governing board and tell them of their concerns nobody has done that she said II they can prove that I should tie fired it would make more sense to do that than to tear apart the agones but which "was not happening While in the governor office she said child id vocacy was funded with private money and woud primarily to get the foster care review system off the drawing board and funtionmg as 29 local boards which monitor the cases of children in fostet care in various parts of the state When the grant money gave out Ms Chappell said Gov James Edwards staff wanted to reduce their headcount and suggested that child advocacy be removed from the governor office SHE SAID THE STATE auditor office was con suited and agreed that the separation of child advocacy and the Foster Care Review Board did not make good budget sense With the aid of the auditor office Ms Chappell said the 1977 budget was set up and explained in great detail in narrative form in that year appropriations bill.