After the murderer of Dana Woods and June Guerry plead guilty and was sentenced to only serve fifty-five total years for the murder of two innocent lives; the majority of our community is in an outrage. Caleb Bradd Matlock and his alleged accomplice Arthur Ray Chavis caused the majority of our normally safe and quiet community to be afraid. The people within the community were afraid to let their children of all ages anywhere out of their sight.

We believe that changing this law will deter people from picking up a gun or other weapon and committing the act of murder.

Currently, the law reads:

SECTION 16-3-20. Punishment for murder; separate sentencing proceeding when death penalty sought. 

(A) A person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to murder must be punished by death, or by a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment for thirty years to life.

(http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c003.php)

 

 We would like to get the attention of our elected officials and get this law changed to read as follows:

SECTION 16-3-20. Punishment for murder; separate sentencing proceeding when death penalty sought. 

(A) A person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to murder must be punished by death, or by a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment for fifty years for each life taken to life.

 

Summary from The Post and Courier Read full Article here: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120909/PC16/120909187

Why did Matlock and his cousin, Arthur Chavis, escort Guerry and her friend to a remote hiking trail, rob them and fatally shoot them, as deputies allege? Why was Guerry’s body taken 10 miles north and dumped in the woods a mile behind her house?

Why did the killers leave signs marking the scenes amid a forest populated by tiger swallowtails, tadpoles and eels?

“It’s not going to make a lot of difference, but I want to know,” said Guerry’s father, Charles Britt. “I have no clue what caused these kids to do what they did.”

The families of Guerry and 18-year-old Dana Woods still don’t have all those answers, though Matlock and Chavis have confessed to the slayings, authorities said. But they know one thing: The crime deemed senseless and unprovoked by those who solved it has shaken this peaceful neck of the woods.

The Victims

When Dana Marie Woods set her heart on something, she went after it until the job was done.

Earlier this year, her youth group at Answer Place Church set out to raise money for a skiing trip to West Virginia. Woods sold all her coupon books and had to retrieve more from the Bonneau church’s pastor, Jason Wallace.

“What are you doing with them?” Wallace asked her.

“Selling them, of course,” she said.

Wallace never had seen such a prolific saleswoman. She earned enough to pay her own way and contribute to another’s.

“She knew a lot of people,” Wallace said. “She was bubbly and outgoing, never a stranger.”

At 15, Woods enrolled in Trident Technical College’s paralegal program.

She spent two years taking general-education courses and dedicating her summers to studying and working. Most recently, she delivered pizza for Papa John’s. To cap off a shift, she often ordered a Cinnapie and shared the treat with co-workers.

She strived to ace her law classes, especially the ones taught by John Bowler. He has a reputation as one of the tougher professors.

In introducing herself to Bowler’s students, Woods’ humor came through. She expressed a desire to excel but a wish to avoid embarrassment at the hands of a particular classmate: her mother, who also attended the college.

“She had a nice way about her,” Bowler said. “She was so sharp. And she was so young.”

She was on track to graduate within a year.

Forty-five minutes from the college campus and a half-mile from Woods’ home on Schurlknight Road, June Marie Guerry was trudging through a much different life.

She was ducking behind furniture, hiding in corners and popping her head out. Her face elicited smiles and chuckles from her 2-year-old, Emma.

Guerry and her daughter lived with her parents on Tea Rose Lane, but the 22-year-old mother was determined to someday make it on her own.

Six months ago, she was hired as a cashier at Walmart. But the position didn’t offer enough work, so she switched to stocking shelves overnight and reached nearly 40 hours weekly. She looked forward to adding medical benefits.

During sparse downtime, she trekked to the streams near her home. With the rod and reel she bought with an employee discount, she angled for little sunfish and the fat catfish she could bring home for a hearty meal.

The tomboy took charge of situations. And she finally was getting a handle on life.

“Our young’un wasn’t a pushover,” her father, Britt, said. “She was a pretty tough little gal, especially for having her own young’un at that age.”

Her parents know Guerry didn’t take what happened to her sitting down.

 

The Crime

On Aug. 26, Guerry had a rare evening off from Walmart, and Woods was on the verge of her first semester of a solid law-related course load.

That Sunday night, Guerry left her purse at her parents’ home, but took her cellphone and visited Woods’ house. There, she talked with Woods’ mother, Jennifer Hill, about selling Avon products.

“I’ll be back,” she said before she left.

Guerry decided to tag along for a quick errand to Woods’ grandmother’s home in Pinopolis.

But at 11:51 p.m., Woods called her mother and said, without detailing the itinerary, that she was giving someone a ride. The two drove to Cordesville, where they met Matlock and Chavis after midnight.

Detectives surmised that the men intended all along to rob the women, one of whom left her wallet at home.

The women likely didn’t know that their detour into the Francis Marion National Forest and over the snaking Palmetto Trail would lead to their deaths.

With a 9 mm handgun, each was shot near the Cane Gully Branch. Woods was left at the scene while Guerry’s body was taken in Woods’ car northward toward her home.

That’s where her parents began to worry.

Hours went by, and the relatives heard nothing. They expressed their fears to the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office: Guerry wasn’t one to abandon her daughter for hours on end, and Woods knows not to cross her mother and return home late.

But the families were told to sit tight: They’re adults and might be off on their own.

As relatives searched for Woods’ car — a Chevrolet Metro with two silver doors — rumors spread on Facebook: Woods was driving to Louisiana to join the Air Force. Frustrated, her mother thought others didn’t share her concerns.

“She started college right before her 16th birthday. ... What kid does that???” Hill wrote. “Surely not one that would disappear and not call.”

Guerry’s father, who was riding with his son-in-law to pick up a disabled vehicle, spotted the Chevrolet heading north over the Tail Race Canal. After a U-turn, they followed the car, but lost it at Highway 402.

“We knew for sure it was Caleb,” Britt said. “We saw that long face of his.”

By noon Monday, a deputy had taken a missing-person report. But the women had been dead for hours.

A man looking for a fishing hole came across the Chevrolet. Soon after Guerry’s father spotted him, Matlock had returned to the shooting scene, burned the car and destroyed any evidence inside, authorities believe.

Woods’ body rested 75 yards away.

For a day, Guerry’s parents clung to a hope that their daughter would be found alive. Volunteer rescuers, dog handlers and horse riders joined state wildlife officers, forest rangers and divers in the search for her body and for clues.

But after she was shot, she had been dragged into a watery dirt pit that some call the “Black Hole,” about 50 yards off a car-wide path known as Walleye C Road. A man visiting a nearby family cemetery noticed a shirt dangling from a tree. His curiosity resulted in the morbid discovery over the pit’s edge.

As the crow flies, Guerry’s resting place was a mile from the victims’ homes. Sheriff’s officials couldn’t explain why the killers chose the locations other than because of their familiarity with the terrain.

“I think they just wanted to cause a scene,” Britt said. “I have no idea why Dana was down there, and June was up here a mile behind our house.”

Soon after the discoveries, Chavis’ and Matlock’s names crossed the lips of town gossips. As investigators analyzed surveillance footage and tracked phone records, hundreds of people attended the women’s funerals and raised money. Their families couldn’t otherwise afford proper sendoffs.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtGFppRPZl8

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