An 8-year-old Spartanburg county girl is dead after she was shot during a domestic dispute in Chesnee.  Officals say Heather Brooke Center was shot by 49-year- old Ricky Blackwell.  The young child was the daughter of the estranged wife’s new boyfriend.  When deputies arrived, Blackwell ignored instructions to drop his weapon and shot himself in the stomach.  He was taken to the hospital for treatment.

“It’s a real back scene, ” says Sheriff Chuck Wright.  “The baby didn’t have nothing  to do with it(the domestic dispute).”

Blackwell is charged with murder and kidnapping.

Family members of Blackwell say he had recently lost his job, and along with the loss of his wife, just ?snapped?.
Witnesses told investigators that Blackwell?s estranged wife brought the child to the location of the shooting where she was so she could play with other children already at the home. Reports indicate that shortly after their arrival Ricky Blackwell took the child from a vehicle and shot her, in the back and neck, at least 4 times.

19-year-old Steven Jeffrey Davidson has been charged with arson in connection with the June 30 burning of a Colleton County church. A Smoaks native, Davidson is accused of setting fire to and destroying the Emmanuel Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith located in the Smoaks area. SLED Captain for the Lowcountry region Roger Heaton says local authorities noticed that Davidson was present at the church fire and at two trailer fires that occured before and after the church fire.

“The local law enforcement was aware of him and the agents actually just approached him there at the fire scene and started talking to him and he became a person of interest. We continued to talk with him and then when we had a third fire just a few days later he was also at that fire scene as firefighters were trying to put the fire out.”

Heaton says Davidson also faces charges in the first mobile home fire that occured on May 29. He is also charged with second degree burglary for breaking into the church before setting it on fire.

Heaton says when piecing together the timeline of the two mobile home fires and the church fire and after interviewing the suspect, local authorities concluded that Davidson’s presence at the fires was more than coincidental.

“We had a mobile home fire next to the church, then we had the church fire, and then we had another mobile home fire.  “This gentleman has been charged in the first mobile home fire, he’s been charged in the church fire, he has not been charged in the third fire but we are still looking into that one.”

Davidson’s presence at the fires may lead some to believe that the suspect is a pyromaniac hanging around to watch the blazes. Heaton says the local solicitor, as well as Davidson’s legal representative may call for Davidson to undergo a psychological evaluation. Heaton adds that a person can have several concrete motives for setting a building on fire.

“A lot of times people will set a fire to try to cover up another crime such as burglary or something like that. They think that by burning the building they will eliminate any trace or detection of the crime. That may very well be what we have here.”

An inmate who dug a hole in the concrete floor of a South Carolina maximum-security prison will not be escaping as he may have planned.

Officers received a tip from an inmate this week that another inmate had dug a tunnel underneath the floor of the Lieber Correctional Intitution in rural Dorchester County. The hole was found inside of the industrial building of the prison, that’s where inmates considered “on good behavior” go to disassemble transmissions.

Josh Gelinas with the Corrections Department says he does not have specific information on the length or width of the tunnel, but he did say the inmate broke the surface of the concrete. Authorities are investigating the motive behind the inmate forming the tunnel. They say it was either an escape route, or a place to stash contraband.

Lieber Correctional Intitution is one of South Carolina’s eight maximum-security prisons, housing the state’s 57 death row inmates, and more than 1,400 inmates in all.

The inmates name has not yet been released.