Posted on 12/01/2001 2:55:08 PM PST by Captain Shady
By JANET SPENCER Staff Writer
GAFFNEY - A 12-year-old boy who told Cherokee County hunters he had been kidnapped faces charges in the shooting deaths of his grandparents and the burning of their Chester County house.
Petitions will be filed in Family Court accusing him of two counts of murder and one count of first-degree arson, Chester County Sheriff Robbie Benson said Thursday night.
The boy, whose name was not released because he was charged as a juvenile, was taken Thursday night from Cherokee County to the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia after extensive questioning.
A hearing will be held to determine whether he will be tried as a juvenile or an adult.
Benson said a preliminary autopsy report showed the boys' grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman, both said to be in their 60s, died of gunshot wounds to the head.
Joe Pittman was a native of Chester and a retired railroad worker who moved back to the area from Florida about three years ago.
The grandson had been living with the Pittmans for about three weeks, authorities said. His parents live in Florida.
Major James McNeil with the Chester County Sheriff's Office said a fire was reported at the Pittmans' Slick Rock Road residence in the western part of the county just after midnight Thursday. McNeil said the fire originated on the front porch and in the living area of the split-level wooden structure.
The Pittmans' bodies were found in the ruins. Their sport utility vehicle was missing, prompting an alert to law enforcement agencies to look for the Nissan Pathfinder.
By 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Roland and Terry Robinson, who were deer hunting off Smoke Ridge Road in rural Cherokee County, were confronted by the 12-year-old.
Robinson and Pennington had separated when they went into the woods. Both reported hearing a noise when a vehicle became stuck on a nearby dirt road. Then a car door shut, and one shot was fired.
The boy, who was carrying a gun, came running toward Pennington, saying he had escaped from a black man, described as tall and about 40 years old. He said the man had kidnapped him and was shooting, trying to kill him, Robinson said.
The Pathfinder was located about 300 yards from where the boy approached the men. A second gun was found on the ground.
Cherokee County Sheriff Bill Blanton said a dog refused to leave the vehicle, which was about a half mile off Smoke Ridge Road. The dog would bark when the men spoke, but became quiet at the sound of the boy's voice, Robinson said.
The hunters led the boy out of the woods, fearing for their own safety, they said. They reached the Corinth Volunteer Fire Department, where Robinson is a firefighter, and called 911.
Blanton said two search teams were immediately dispatched, along with a helicopter from the State Law Enforcement Division and dogs.
Nearby Corinth Elementary School and a day care at Corinth Baptist Church were locked down. Deputies were stationed outside each.
A search that lasted for several hours showed no evidence that anyone else had accompanied the boy into the woods, Blanton said by mid-afternoon.
During questioning, the boy said he was awakened at his grandparents' home by the sounds of gunfire. He said he was forced to leave with his abductor in his grandparents' vehicle along with the family dog.
Robinson described the boy as "small-framed," weighing less than 85 pounds. "He was polite. He said 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir.' He said there were money and guns in the vehicle and wanted to show us. We didn't want to go near it," Robinson said.
Benson would not comment on information the boy gave investigators that he had been involved in a fight at school Wednesday. The grandfather was called to the school and said he would discipline his grandson, according to investigators.
Authorities said the charges came following extensive questioning of the boy.
Janet Spencer can be reached at 582-4511, Ext. 7222 or janet.spencer@shj.com.
By JOEL D. SAWYER Middle Tyger Bureau
A 12-year-old boy has confessed to shooting his grandparents to death and subsequently torching their West Chester house, Chester County Sheriff Robert Benson said Friday.
The boy, whose name cannot be released because of his age, was charged Thursday with arson and two counts of murder after hunters found him and his grandparents' missing sport-utility vehicle in rural Cherokee County.
Authorities say they're stumped to find a motive in the killings, and those who knew the family are puzzled, as well.
The boy came to live with his paternal grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman, in late October. He had been living with his parents in Florida and had begun to develop some behavioral problems, said Chris Snelgrove, pastor at New Hope Methodist Church, where the Pittmans attended. "When they found out he was beginning to have problems, they immediately volunteered to go down there and get him," Snelgrove said.
Snelgrove described the boy as a bright, loving young man. He said the boy had been to his house several times to play with his own son, also 12.
"This has to be some catastrophic psychological thing that happened. This had to be a medically ..." Snelgrove said, trailing off.
"(He) is a good young man," he said. "There's not an answer that can just be posted on this."
According to Chester County coroner Watson Right, Joe and Joy Pittman each died Thursday from a close-range shotgun blast.
Joe Pittman, 66, was shot near the mouth, while Joy, 62, was shot in the back of the head, Right said. Investigators said after killing his grandparents, the boy set their home on fire and drove off in his grandfather's Nissan Pathfinder.
He told the two men who found him in Cherokee County that he had been kidnapped.
Benson said his office is not yet releasing any information on a possible motive. The Pittmans' neighbor, Roger Price, called 911 when he saw the home burning. He said he could never have imagined what investigators later found inside.
"I didn't know the kid that well because he had just moved here. The family -- they were good people," Price said.
"You hardly ever hear of something like that happening. This is a quiet place," he said.
Helen Yarborough, who has lived in West Chester all her life, said she can remember only one other local event as tragic.
In 1970, Robert Gibson murdered his two young nephews and shot their mother, his sister, not far from where Yarborough lives.
Gibson is serving a life sentence.
"That little boy came and stayed with (his grandparents) every summer. As far as we knew, everything was fine," Yarborough said.
Yarborough said she often saw Joe Pittman teaching the boy to drive the Pathfinder he drove to Cherokee County Thursday.
"It's got us real upset -- we just don't know how to accept things like that," Yarborough said. "They were good, Christian people."
The boy could be free in nine years.
"The most he can get out of it (if he's tried as a juvenile) is a juvenile facility until he's 17, and transferred to an adult facility until he's 21," Benson said. (Can't he get death row? See below)
When charged with murder, state law does not specify a minimum age for someone to be tried as an adult.
But according to assistant attorney general David Avant, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled in early 2000 that a 12-year-old, referred to in court documents as "Corey B," could be tried as an adult on two murder charges.
A family court judge will decide whether to hand the case over to a general sessions court to try the boy as an adult. The youth will appear in court Monday.
As of March 2001, four inmates on South Carolina death row were tried as adults and convicted of murder while still juveniles, the youngest of whom was 16 when the crime was committed.
Avant said he knew of no specific state law preventing a 12-year-old from facing the death penalty, but that there may be U.S. Supreme Court decisions that would prevent a prosecutor from seeking that penalty.
News research manager Chandra Pierce and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Joel Sawyer can be reached at (864) 877-3225, 574-5980 or at joel.sawyer@shj.com.
We've lost our values, and our sense of the real gravity of life-and-death situations, and the people who took 'em away are Hollywood and each of us who casually lets himself and his kids succumb to the gory "entertainment."
What we need is some good, old-fashioned responsbility and parenting.
True,very true.That is what we need,YESTERDAY.
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