Posted on 08/09/2013 6:44:36 AM PDT by Gamecock
For days last August, police walked every square inch of the tiny town where missing teen Gabrielle Swainson was last known to be.
But the 5-foot-deep hole where her body was found Thursday night was impossible to see.
In the early days of the search, the FBI had set up its command post at a fire department less than two football fields away. Even cadaver dogs had walked past the grave hidden among trees about 40 yards from railroad tracks off U.S. 1 in Elgin.
Finally, the man charged with Gabrielle’s kidnapping pointed it out to Richland County sheriff’s investigators.
“The monster Freddie Grant took us to a location in Elgin where he buried Gabbiee,” Sheriff Leon Lott said. “This has been 357 days of terror that Gabbiee’s mother and family have endured and that this community has endured. This is not the way we would have liked to end it.”
Grant was charged Thursday with murder after pointing to where deputies should dig. In exchange for leading investigators to the body, Grant will receive an undisclosed plea agreement.
But Grant will not receive a light sentence because of it, Lott said. Instead, his 27-year-old daughter, Dominique Grant, who was arrested earlier this summer on an accessory charge, is the most likely beneficiary of any deal.
Gabrielle disappeared from her mother’s home in Northeast Richland County in the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 2012. Her disappearance earned national attention and tugged at the local community’s heartstrings as people waited for news on the girl’s whereabouts.
Thousands attended vigils and volunteered to search. Friends wore blue bracelets as a sign of hope that she would be found.
By all accounts, Gabrielle was a model teenager. She made the honor roll in the bioscience magnet program at Ridge View High School. She sang and played guitar, often performing at Right Direction Church International, where she was faithful member with her mother. She had been chosen for Ridge View’s junior varsity cheerleading squad as she entered her sophomore year.
Within hours of Gabrielle’s disappearance, sheriff’s investigators suspected Grant. He had been dating Gabrielle’s mother, Elvia Swainson, and even had participated in the early search.
But Grant refused to cooperate with investigators, even after he was charged with kidnapping and then convicted in federal court on an ammunition charge.
The break came in June when Gabrielle’s cellphone was discovered behind a Myrtle Beach Piggly Wiggly, Lott said. Investigators said they were able to place Dominique Grant in the area about the same time the phone was discovered.
She was jailed at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on a $300,000 bond after being charged with accessory after the fact of a felony.
“That was the breaking point as far as getting Freddie to lead us to where Gabbiee was buried,” Lott said.
Lott said he and 5th Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson had been negotiating with Grant for months but he had refused to budge. And they refused to offer a lenient sentence, Lott said. Still, Johnson said, he won’t pursue the death penalty.
“It’s almost like you’re making a deal with the devil,” he said.
Dominique Grant remained in jail Thursday night.
From the beginning, Lott said his priority was finding Gabbiee. He has watched the parents of Dail Dinwiddie, who disappeared from Five Points in 1992, suffer for more than 20 years, and he said he wanted to prevent the same prolonged pain of uncertainty for Elvia Swainson.
“For the past 357 days, I’ve seen the pain in Elvia every time I’ve talked to her,” Lott said.
Lott said breaking the news of the grave to Elvia Swainson was the hardest family notification he has made in his 38-year law enforcement career.
Three Richland County sheriff’s investigators flew Thursday morning in a state airplane to Kentucky to pick up Grant from McCreary federal prison, where he is incarcerated on the federal ammo charge.
They arrived back in Columbia around 2:45 p.m. and immediately took Grant to Elgin, just across the county line, in Kershaw County. He pointed out the unmarked grave, which was about 40 yards from railroad tracks and near a bridge off U.S. 1. Grant’s house on a dirt lane in Elgin is less than a quarter mile away, on the other side of the tracks.
“It kills us because we failed to find her even though we could not have saved her life,” Lott said.
Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews said the grave, about 5 feet deep, was impossible to recognize. His department brought in an excavator that was used to pull away brush. Richland County Coroner Gary Watts and Kershaw County Johnny Fellers were at the scene and were able to identify the grave markings soon after the excavator was used.
Then, investigators began using smaller digging tools so as not to miss any evidence, Matthews said. Lights and a generator were brought in so investigators could see after sunset.
Gabrielle’s body was recovered shortly after 9 p.m. Items were found at the site that connected the body to Gabrielle, but an autopsy scheduled for Friday morning is expected to confirm it is hers, Lott said.
Grant’s court appearance on the murder charge is expected to happen quickly.
Grant also has been named by Elgin police as a person of interest in another missing-person case. Adrianna Laster, who was 28 when she was last seen around Labor Day 2011, had been living with Grant.
And Matthews said he considers Grant a person of interest in the October 2011 shooting death of 36-year-old Lee Wood in Lugoff. Wood had a relationship with Laster, Matthews said.
But the two sheriffs said Thursday they were focused on Gabrielle’s case and Grant had not been offered any plea deals in those cases.
Grant’s defense attorney on the kidnapping charge, Richland County public defender Fielding Pringle, declined to comment.
Even a fairly small folding pocket knife in the hands of someone with some training would go a long ways in solving a problem like this.
Poor dear child! Surely she’s in the arms of Our Lord. I hope that in heaven she will pray that her poor mother will be comforted.
:: It kills us because we failed to find her even though we could not have saved her life ::
Mr. LEO needs a PR professional to help him with his choice of words...seriesly.
RIP.
In an earlier time and a better nation most women from their teen years until old age carried at least one long hat pin.
and usually a gun.
well, this is terrible, may that poor girl, and the others mentioned Rest in Peace.
Where did these events take place?
And I must say that atty’s name, Fielding Pringle, is like something out of Dickens.
I have long advocated that women and girls should be raised with the idea that a knife or other bladed weapon is a required accessory, and that, if menaced by a man, they are socially obligated to cut them.
While guns are fine, they are both pricey and the restrictions outside the US are oppressive, so while great for American women and girls to carry a gun, along with a knife, for most of the women and girls around the world, a cheap knife, or even sharp piece of discarded metal or broken glass, will have to do.
Importantly, trying to cut or cutting a man will result in many women and girls being beaten, or even killed, at least at first, but they are beaten and killed right now, while helpless to defend themselves. But when a critical threshold of women and girls are armed, it will change the entire paradigm, because it will force men to ponder, if even for a moment, that they may have to pay a price for attacking a woman or girl. And that price could include serious injury or death.
It takes all the fun out of being a brute and rapist.
In any event, this is a cultural change for women and girls, and is forced by other women and girls, who insist that other women and girls do this, as it is socially required of them. That to go out in public unarmed is as unacceptable as to go out in public naked.
“To carry a blade with them is just something that women and girls have to do. And if attacked by a man, they *must* fight back against that man.”
And the world changes.
There are so many stories like this. I wish women would realize that a man who professes an interest in you may actually just be trying to get access to your nubile daughter. Didn't anyone ever read Lolita?
An article I read yesterday said that monster still had a key to the house from his prior relationship with the mother. What a tragedy.
**Where did these events take place?**
Columbia, SC
Not a white girl ==> media not interested.
Let me fix that for you"
Not a white [hispanic] man==> media not interested.
Unfortunately even in this country a gun is not an option. I have a beautiful nearly 21 year old daughter who goes to college in a rough urban area. I checked into gun laws - if she is caught with a gun in the car (not even on her person) it is not only a felony for her but also a felony for the person who provided the gun. This despite the fact she is a good shot with plenty of range time and is often coming back to her dorm late at night in a terrible area of town....
All I can do is buy her a Crocodile Dundee size knife and pray she turns 21 soon.... We need to wake up to our oppressive gun laws as well
A child’s worst nightmare is mama’s boyfriend.
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“...to pick up Grant from McCreary federal prison,
where he is incarcerated on the federal ammo charge...”
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January 16 , 2013
Columbia, South Carolina
FREDDIE GRANT, age 53, of Elgin, South Carolina, was convicted yesterday morning following a one-day trial Monday in federal court in Columbia.
Jurors deliberated just over two hours Tuesday morning before returning the verdict.
GRANT was convicted of being a felon in possession of ammunition in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 922(g)(1).
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http://www.justice.gov/usao/sc/news/1.16.13.grant.html
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Gee, that sounds like an oppressive state. In Arizona, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a girl in a bikini wearing a gun.
Importantly, trying to cut or cutting a man will result in many women and girls being beaten, or even killed, at least at first, but they are beaten and killed right now, while helpless to defend themselves. But when a critical threshold of women and girls are armed, it will change the entire paradigm, because it will force men to ponder, if even for a moment, that they may have to pay a price for attacking a woman or girl. And that price could include serious injury or death.
Well said, yefragetuwrabrumuy. All too many girls who are too "nice" to "fool with" knives end up being victims.
So very sad.. such a young, beautiful, and promising girl.
Rest in Peace and watch over your family and friends.
Thank you.
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