Eight plead guilty to murder case charges
Eight men who played a part in the Christmas Eve 2007 kidnapping, torture and murder of Jeremy Leaphart admitted to the crimes Monday, and the judge started handing out harsh sentences.
"I'm going to be as lenient to him as he was to the victim," Circuit Judge Doyet "Jack" Early told Darrell Williams' attorney before he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the crime.
Frankie Gantt, 18, of Monetta, admitted to executing the victim and received a 45-year sentence for the crime which he will serve day-for-day. The other seven defendants pleaded guilty to kidnapping; three were sentenced Monday and each received 30-year sentences - the maximum term for the crime.
Leaphart, who testimony stated was cognitively delayed, was picked up by men he considered friends and taken to the home of one of them. There the 20-year-old became the victim of torture and was kidnapped, according to testimony.
When he tried to escape, Gantt shot him three times to stop him, reloaded, took him behind an abandoned building and executed him with a final round of bird shot to the neck.
The defendants believed Leaphart knew the whereabouts of several guns that the group had recently stolen. When he did not give the group the information or money that they wanted, the torture began.
The eight defendants, all wearing various shades of orange or red jumpsuits, sat in the grand jury box flanked by their neatly dressed attorneys. In unison they raised their handcuffed right hands to swear, told the court they understood their rights and admitted their part in the crime. Two defendants took issue with "the hand of one, the hand of all" premise in South Carolina law.
Chief Assistant Solicitor Bill Weeks told the court how hot irons were used and "everybody was invited to pound on him a little bit." After the torture and execution, the ordeal for the victim's body continued.
"If this isn't bad enough, what happened next was worse," Weeks said.
The body was taken from its first location, rolled up in a blanket and then taken and dumped on a trash pile outside of Batesburg.
Leaphart's legal guardians spoke to Early through a letter read by a victim's advocate.
"I prayed day and night that if they killed him, they would have had the decency to bury him. I knew he wasn't coming home alive," the letter read.
Leaphart's family offered a picture of the young man as someone who "had his struggles" but someone who was "harmless."
All three defendants who pleaded to kidnapping - Johnnie Walker, Sheldon Oakmon and Williams - received the maximum 30 years, despite pleas from attorneys and varying accounts of culpability and involvement.
Repeatedly Early asked attorneys and their clients why, if they were not as involved as others, they did not tell police what had happened and where the body was rotting.
"I don't see how I can feed him from a different spoon that have fed the rest of them," Early told Everett Chandler, attorney for Oakmon.
The remaining sentencings of Andre Norris, 27, of Batesburg; Marion Abner Jr., 20, of Ward, Ronnie Bowers Jr., 19, and John Oakmon Jr. of Batesburg, will be concluded today.
Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.