Carolina Crimes

I chronicle thirteen chilling South Carolina murders that occurred at the hands of some of South Carolina's notorious murderers. Included are Pee Wee Gaskins, Rudolph Tyner, Rusty Woomer and Larry Gene Bell.      I also document my exposure as a young girl to a 1953 double-murder in Pamplico, South Carolina. When I came face to face with the original case records twenty-four years later on my first day of work as a Forensic Photographer with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), I was immediately hooked on a profession that took me deep into the investigations of hundreds of criminal cases.

Murder in the Midlands

The detailed story of the kidnapping and murders of 17 year old, Shari Faye Smith and 9 year old, Debra May Helmick in the summer of 1985 in the Midlands of South Carolina.  A cloud of terror hung over the entire state of South Carolina for twenty-eight days until the one piece of physical evidence led law enforcement to the killer, Larry Gene Bell. I lead the readers through these twenty-eight days of one of the most notorious manhunts in South Carolina history sharing my personal interactions with some of the key players. Included are Bell's chilling phone calls to the Smith family and his disconcerting interviews and bizarre actions in the courtroom, which show the dark, evil, and criminal mind of this horrific killer. This case has been featured on the Discovery Channel's FBI Files, episode, "Cat and Mouse", and in the CBS movie "Nightmare in Columbia County". It runs as  episode, "Last Will" on Forensic Files. It is documented on "On the Case With Paula Zahn", on ID Investigative Channel as " A Month of Terror".

Small-town Slayings in South Carolina 

I take the readers back in time showing the differences and similarities of crime solving in the past and present and some surprise twists in court proceedings, verdicts, and sentences. From an unsolved case that haunted me for thirty years to a cold case that was solved after fifteen years by advanced Fingerprint and DNA technology. I blend my own memories with extensive research, resulting in a fast-paced, factual and fascinating look at crime in South Carolina.