A Greenville courthouse has the makings of a “Dateline” episode, involving an accused hitman, a local attorney shot and a mysterious, fatal car wreck.On April 18, 2023, attorney JP Baum was shot beside a car outside the Law Offices of Truluck Thomason. In a statement he released, he said, “My right lung collapsed. As I started to take what I believed was my last breaths in this world, I called my wife to tell her I was dying and that I loved her.”Nearly a month later, investigators arrested Travis Douglass, a Hilton Head man with no criminal record.The state says Douglass agreed to shoot and kill an attorney for his friend David Smith, an architect. The Law Offices of Truluck Thomason was suing him for more than a million dollars for construction issues.On April 18, 2023, video shows a man driving a recreational vehicle past the law offices, getting out, casing an attorney’s car and then waiting in the RV for three hours. Just before 7 p.m., Baum was shot while loading his car. His attorneys say he wasn’t the intended target. Detective Thomas Bixby with the Greenville Police Department said they found Douglass and the RV with the same distinct scratch on the side nearly a month later, about a quarter of a mile away from Baum’s home. In body camera footage, Douglass admitted to police that he was the only person to have driven the RV in the last couple of months. Police found a 22-caliber bullet casing that had been fired under the driver’s seat.Detectives say cell tower signals and receipts put Douglass at the scene of the crime and discovered the connection to Smith. They requested Smith’s Google searches. “March 6, searched for silencer design, 22 bullet dimensions,” said Bixby.That was along with searches for a different attorney and his home address. Baum’s attorneys say he’s similar in height and build.Douglass’ searches after the shooting caught law enforcement’s attention. “Can a thief steal a 2019 dodge ram without the keys, how to hotwire a Promaster van, where is ignition wire,” Bixby read.Soon after Douglass was arrested, the state says Smith’s Google searches, some of which were deleted and recovered, tell the rest of the story. “Maximum sentence for accessory after the fact. Travis Douglass. Fatal car accident Columbia. How long can you be detained without charges,” said Bixby as he read Smith’s search history.Detectives say Smith willed the house to his wife the same day Douglass was arrested. The next day, he died in a car crash, driving 105 miles per hour into a telephone pole. The defense says this is a coincidence. They questioned each witness, poking holes in testimony and tools used in the investigation to make a case there is reasonable doubt.
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When 99-year-old Ben Teevan tells a story, it’s a part of living history. The Grandview WWII veteran served for nearly two years aboard the USS Alabama battleship in the war. He was a first loader on the ship that played an integral part in the Pacific Theater. “To this day, I can still hear the casings flying out of the back of the mount and bouncing around,” Teevan said, recalling vivid details from his time aboard the ship 80 years ago.Teevan often tells these stories when he has a special visitor, Grandview Fire Chief Rodney Baldwin. “Knowing what the guys went through back then, its something we forget,” Baldwin said. “We forget how lucky we are.”Teevan, who has been active in the Grandview community for years, has struck up a strong friendship with Baldwin over the past few years, partly because they’re both veterans. Baldwin served in the U.S. Army and knows how important these stories are.”The greatest generation, you know, its going away quick,” he said. “Theres not many of them left, and theres something we can learn from them.”Those stories often revolve around Teevan’s time aboard the USS Alabama, a ship he still considers his home, even though he hasn’t seen it in years.”She’s a dandy, believe me,” he said.The USS Alabama, now, is a museum and a memorial for the thousands like Teevan who served on it. And a few weeks ago, he returned home to a hero’s welcome.As dozens gathered to cheer his arrival on the ship in Mobile, Teevan had trouble holding back tears.”I made it,” he said. “It’s good to be home.”One reason Teevan wanted to make this journey to the ship, is because it recently underwent more than $8 million in renovations to restore the deck to its former glory. He wanted to walk on the deck one final time.”It’s good to see,” he said. “I know this trip will be my last.”And for those aboard the USS Alabama, it might be the last time they see a crewman here.”I never thought Id actually physically see another crewman on this ship,” Bill Tunnell, USS Alabama Battleship Commissioner, said. Out of the more than 6,000 who served aboard this ship during WWII, Teevan is one of just three still alive and the only one who is able to travel to Mobile.”This is such a special day in our lives and in his life, too,” Tunnell said. “He will be the representative as probably the last living crewman to be able to visit the ship.”That is history that Baldwin had to see for himself, which is why he helped bring Teevan all the way here from Grandview.”Hes 20 years younger today,” Baldwin said as he smiled. “He’s got the energy to walk the deck. Hes got good color in his face, hes got a good sense of purpose in his step.”While Teevan had planned on this being his final visit to his ship, he started to reconsider just moments before he left.”You know, I might just squeeze out another one,” he said while laughing.That visit will probably happen, because you can never count out the determination of our Greatest Generation.
The Mile High City, Cincinnati, Nashville, Cleveland and Philadelphia are all in the running for a new soccer club. National Western Complex ‘off limits’
In the notice, it was clarified that Rupali Ganguly was friends with Ashwin Verma for 12 years, before he separated from his second wife, Esha Verma’s mother, in 2009. It was also said that Ganguly, along with Verma, tried to help Esha get a break into the entertainment industry, by providing opportunities for photoshoots and making special arrangements for auditions
“Turning empty rooms into home” that’s the motto of House2Home, a Nashville non-profit that provides new beds and gently used furniture to people without homes.
Aaron Wagner, the Founder and CEO of WAGS Capitol, who is behind popular Valley businesses, faces 16 federal counts of money laundering and fraud related to business funds.
Over the weekend, a Disney cruise ship helped the U.S. Coast Guard save four stranded boaters. (Source: U.S. Coast Guard District 5 via CNN Newsource)
MADRIDs Jamon Museum has sparked outrage after launching a tourists go HAM campaign. The marketing initiative pokes fun at anti-tourist protests which
Some people are debating whether or not its time to decorate for Christmas.But for one Greenwood family business, Halloween never ends, even after the big box stores close for the season.
Fire crews on both coasts of the United States continued battling wildfires on Sunday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee and another in Southern California that destroyed more than 130 structures and damaged dozens more.Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size due to dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds.The Mountain Fire prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 26% contained as of Sunday, up from 21% the previous day. The fires size remains around 32 square miles. The cause is under investigation.The fire continues to creep and smolder in steep rugged terrain. Threats remain to critical infrastructure, highways, and communities, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire.Meanwhile, New York State Police said they were investigating the death of Dariel Vasquez, an 18-year-old state parks employee who died when a tree fell on him Saturday afternoon as he battled a major brush fire in Sterling Forest, located in New York state’s Greenwood Lake near the New Jersey line.Rip brother your shift is over job well done, a New York State forestry services post said.Jeremy Oldroyd, a forest ranger with New York state, said that Vasquez died assisting with fire line construction.Wildland firefighting is a very dangerous profession, and we try to take as many precautions as we can mitigate some of the hazards that are out there in the wildland fire environment. But occasionally accidents do happen, he said.New Jersey’s state forest fire service said Sunday that the blaze dubbed the Jennings Creek Wildfire was threatening 25 structures, including two New Jersey homes. It had grown to 4.7 square miles and was 10% contained as of Sunday night.Health advisories were issued for parts of New York, including New York City, and northeastern New Jersey due to unhealthy air quality due to smoke from the fires. People were urged to limit strenuous outdoor physical activity if possible; those especially sensitive included the very young and very old and people with ailments such as asthma and heart disease.But there was progress on other fires.New Jersey officials reported 75% containment of a 175-acre fire in the Pompton Lakes area of Passaic County that was threatening 55 homes, although no evacuations had been ordered, as well as progress made on other fires burning in the state amid bone-dry conditions.In New Jersey, Ocean County prosecutors on Saturday announced arson and firearms charges in connection with a 350-acre Jackson Township fire that started Wednesday.They said that fire was sparked by magnesium shards from a shotgun round on the berm of a shooting range. Officials said firing that kind of incendiary or tracer ammunition was barred in the state. The majority of the blaze has been contained, officials reported Friday.In Massachusetts, one wildfire among several fueled by powerful wind gusts and dry leaves has burned hundreds of acres in the Lynn Woods Reservation, a municipal park extending across about 3.4 square miles in the city some 10 miles north of Boston.The Lynn Fire Department cited “a dry spell we have not seen during this time of year in many years.We have had over 400 acres of the woods that have burned so far. We believe we have the fire contained using the main fire roads. We will maintain a presence to ensure the fire doesnt spread further,” Lynn Fire Chief Dan Sullivan said in a statement late Sunday.He said windy and dry conditions certainly made it challenging even as he asked people to stay away from the burned-out areas. There are far too many weakened trees, and we dont want the public to get injured,” he added.
A toddler ran out from his Mesa home and into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection Friday night.
An ASU spacecraft is reaching its first year in outer space. It’s now tens of millions of miles from home. It’s traveling so fast, that since we started talking about it 10 seconds ago, it’s traveled another 230 miles. FOX 10’s Steve Nielsen got a behind the scenes look at why it’s so important to explore an asteroid beyond Mars.