South Carolina Killers

Book excerpt: A South Carolina historian examines a selection of true crime murder stories from the Palmetto State, from 1903 to 2003. Murder leaves no decade unscarred. In 1903, the lieutenant governor of South Carolina shot dead a local newspaper editor, in full view of witnesses. George Stinney was marched to the electric chair in 1944 at age fourteen. A mother made national news in 1994 pleading for the return of her kidnapped sons, when in truth she had driven them to a watery grave herself. Jones spares no chilling detail in describing each of these crimes; all make for fascinating, and terrifying, reading.