SUMTER, S.C. (AP) - A man who shot and killed an acquaintance buried the body and dug it up twice with help from his mother and three others before the remains were discovered in a South Carolina lake, a sheriff said.
Stephen Stinnette II killed Jerry Johnson after an argument last month in Sumter County, Sheriff Anthony Dennis said.
Stinnette then got his mother and three other people - all now charged with accessory after the fact - to bury the 24-year-old’s body, Dennis said.
They dug the body up, put the remains back in Stinnette’s Chevrolet Tahoe and buried them again before tossing the body into Lake Marion in Orangeburg County, authorities said.
Deputies think the suspects kept moving the body because they were suspicious someone was talking to police, Dennis said.
A boater found the body April 25 and the coroner’s office determined Johnson had been shot at least once, authorities said.
Johnson’s death is “one of the most profoundly senseless killings since I’ve been sheriff in Sumter County,” Dennis said at a news conference.
Deputies are still trying to figure out why Stinnette killed Johnson, the sheriff said. All the suspects are white and the victim is black, but Dennis said there is no indication the crime was driven by racial hatred.
“They were acquaintances, they knew each other. They had been seen together before,” Dennis said.
Stinnette, 32, is charged with murder and was arrested Friday in Richland County.
His mother, 57-year-old Lisa Avins is charged as an accessory after the fact along with Kimberly McLeod, 36; Andrew Scurry, 36; and Anthony Dill, 32. All have been arrested except Dill.
Court records did not list attorneys for any of the suspects.
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