Posted on 08/17/2016 11:53:04 AM PDT by Gamecock
AIKEN COUNTY, SC The reputation of Murphy Village’s residents reaches far beyond the Palmetto State.
The North Augusta community, just past Interstate 20 in Aiken County, is home to one of the largest communities of Irish Travelers in the nation. According to the 2010 Census, about 1,400 Travelers live in Murphy Village. National counts of Travelers range between 10,000 and 40,000.
Nationwide, the community’s residents have been associated with scams involving shoddy repair work. Most recently, Union County Sheriff David Taylor published an article in the local newspaper warning residents to be alert for Irish Travelers leaving their business cards around town.
On Tuesday, a federal grand jury returned an indictment of 45 counts against 22 people, most of them Travelers living in Murphy Village. The indictment alleges the group committed different kinds of fraud and money laundering schemes, among other charges.
Similar allegations have been raised against Travelers in the past. But for the most part, they are praised within their community in Aiken County. According to published reports, it’s common practice for travelers to not target residents in their own neighborhood.
Locals say most Travelers are honest, hard-working people whose reputations have been tainted by the actions of a few. Because they live together and keep to themselves, suspicion of them is rampant. They own lavish homes and mansions in Murphy Village that show few signs of life. The windows of most homes are covered from top to bottom with blinders or are tinted.
They also speak a secret and protective dialect called “Cant” that meshes English and Gaelic when they feel uncomfortable around outsiders. Travelers believe their reclusiveness has allowed them to keep their traditional lifestyle, according to news reports.
Irish have moved to America since before the country’s founding. But they emigrated to the United States in large numbers in the 1840s, after potato crop failures left them with a period of mass starvation. Most stayed in large Northeastern cities. But a small group, the Travelers, broke off and moved to South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.
Most of the men work on the road traveling to different states during favorable weather to work in construction-related jobs, such as repairing roofs, resurfacing driveways and painting barns.
Travelers often take their families with them, pulling children from school around the eighth grade. Remaining in school can endanger their lifestyle if teens start to date outside of the community, according to reports. A handful of students have chosen to remain in school but are often ostracized from their families.
The best glimpse outsiders had into South Carolina’s Murphy Village was in 2012, when an episode of TLC’s “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding” chronicled a North Augusta couple’s wedding preparations.
The episode centered on Tamara and Bill McKown, a couple who married in December 2011. What was special about the episode was that Tamara McKown was a non-Traveler from Tennessee, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
Before that, Irish Travelers gained the nation’s attention when one of their own, Madelyne Toogood, was caught on camera beating her 4-year-old daughter at an Indiana shopping center. Toogood was identified as being part of a Texas-based branch of the clan.
They also received unwanted attention after they were featured in an award-winning investigation by NBC’s “Dateline” in the mid-1990s that focused on how children as young as 10 were being forced to wed.
Following the news investigation, then-S.C. Attorney General Charlie Condon created a task force that swept through Murphy Village, arresting Travelers on charges similar to those filed Tuesday.
Condon also called on the Legislature to pass a law setting a minimum age for marriage. In 1997, the minimum age was set at 14 for girls and in 2000 it was updated to 16.
Great flic - if you can call up the close-captioning to follow the dialogue!
The Irish Travelers have been around for YEARS.
.
I had forgotten about it but I also had a couple try the meat scam but a bit different.
They showed up with a box of what was marked as U.S. Choice steaks. They said they had delivered all they had but still had one left over and wanted to get rid of it at a good price.
I told them I could not use a box but might be interested in just a couple of steaks. They would only sell the box. I am actually not certain but pretty sure it was a scam.
When they come through an Irish county everybody hides the silver. :-)
There was a Law and Order Criminal Intent episode entitled “Graansha” about Irish Travelers. Very interesting people.
You meat him at the door with a cleaver? (yuk yuk)
“Gypsies & Travelers - a criminal society.”
Many years ago I was told by some kin they had a “Headquarters”near Rolla. Missouri....
If the truck has a West Virginia plate on it, I send them packing immediately. We have lots of WV gypsies running scams.
If you let them on your roof to check for loose shingles, they will knock a hole in it.
Driveway sealing is done with black paint.
My wife’s Grandfather was taken by them in the 1930s.
They sprayed his roof with an aluminum coating. The first rain washed it off. This was in Oklahoma.
My aunt has been taken within the past 7 years. Driveway sealing. An elderly person with dementia is a big pay day for them.
“Driveway sealing is done with black paint.”
I’ve heard others using used motor oil!
Chicago PD used to have separate gang books - latin, black, white... and gypsy.
They apparently make a lot of money but there is a downside.
Most of them have been caught and convicted a few times. I guess it is just a cost of doing business for them.
I once met one in a medium security prison. About 35 years old - did not know for sure. Born in America. Never went to school and could not sign his name. Claimed that he never had a Soc Sec number.
He said that his favorite scam was putting used motor oil on blacktop driveways. He said that he recognized fellow travelers by the particular type of truck that they drove.
I do not remember what his criminal charge was.
I watch a lot of British (& Irish & Scottish & Welsh) TV shows. They sometimes deal with issues of the “Irish Travelers.”
bump
Their scam I saw was thus:
They approach the victim and say “Our boss told us to go to the warehouse and get 10 of (whatever. In one case it was large speakers). We accidentally got 11 of them, so we need to get rid of one now, before returning to the boss. We’ll give you a great deal”.
They then open up a box and display the large speakers. “But hey, let me give you an unopened one” they say.
And when you get home you find it is full of bricks.
2 dudes tried it on me in an Academy parking lot. The product was “A home surround sound stereo system”. I laughed in their faces.
More recently I was in an HEB supermarket. A child passed behind me and threw something at my back. He was acting odd. I followed him. Turns out he was a filthy gypsy who was eating food off the shelves and hiding the wrappers, all with his parents’ approval. I stood by the family as they stole; the child was very sneaky about it. I contacted management. They did not believe the part about the parents coaxing the children to steal; it was just too crazy for a law abiding American to conceive, so I took the manager to the wrappers and then pointed out the family. The dad looked like he was going to stab me!
Filthy gypsies are filthy, disgusting people who think that one of their ancestors obtained a nail from Christ’s cross and thus God allows them to steal. For real, that is the justification for their criminality.
I grew up in Saluda SC
I didn’t but I live here now.. LOL
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