Per the 2024/25 budget, Horry County residents pay $57 million annually for Horry County Police Corruption that has been ongoing since 1927.
Years before the 1956 establishment of the Horry County Police Department, the good ole boys of questionable law enforcement (for the few) ran the show in Horry County.
FOR THOSE NOT NEEDING BUDGET DETAILS, SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE TO
“A DARK, WELL DOCUMENTED HISTORY“ scroll to yellow heading
CURIOUS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS – Click the highlight link here
RECENT SCOTT SPIVEY SHOOTING ENTANGLEMENTS Scroll to green heading
WHO HAS INFLUENCE IN HORRY COUNTY? – Click the highlight link here
Numerous online podcasters and video content creators from outside the county, along with the legacy and podcast press of Lawyer Mark Tinsley, are diligently working to construct a one story narrative for a long-standing local issue that spans generations.
To discover the truth, readers should approach someone with family roots in Horry County dating back to 1767. Our news team, although not part of the good old boy network, has been advocating for change for over two decades.
THE TRUTH ABOUT HORRY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT CORRUPTION and who has influence in Horry County
Horry County residents pay, in total, $71 million annually in policing, many of which are duplicate services provided by the HCPD.
From the Horry County 2024/25 budget, Horry County Police Departmental Mission Statement:
It is the mission of the Horry County Police Department to enhance the quality of life in our community by actively seeking solutions to community problems and to provide services that are valued by its citizens. We are committed to providing a safe, peaceful environment for citizens, those in need, and protecting the lives, property and rights of the citizens we serve, to reduce.
Residents do not elect the Horry County Police Chief. He is appointed by the Horry County Administrator.
South Carolina has a total of 46 counties, with only Horry County having its own county police department. In the remaining 45 counties, county policing is the responsibility of the county sheriff’s office, while city policing is carried out by city policemen.
Many counties adopt this policing method due to the election of county sheriffs by county residents, which ensures accountability.
Horry County spends $14 million annually on the Horry County Sheriff’s Office. Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson was elected by the residents last November winning 99% of the vote.
From the Horry County 2024/25 budget: SHERIFF DEPARTMENT
Departmental Mission Statement: To provide quality law enforcement, detention, court security and civil services to the citizens and visitors of Horry County, by treating others with dignity and respect, while being good stewards of the public’s trust.
Sheriff Department Services Provided:
The Horry County Sheriff’s Office provides law enforcement duties for the citizens and visitors of Horry County. Note a HCPD does the duplicate same service the Sheriff’s office.
The Sheriff’s Office is responsible for the security of the Horry County Government & Justice Center, security for the Historic Courthouse, the Myrtle Beach Magistrate’s Office and assists with security at other County Magistrate
Offices upon request. The Sheriff’s Office also serves civil, family court orders and criminal arrest warrants within the county. The Sheriff’s Office is mandated by S.C. State Law to register, verify, and keep a record of all sex offenders residing in Horry County as well as issuing non-ferrous metal permits.
The Sheriff’s Office is also responsible for extraditing wanted criminals back to Horry County upon the request of the Solicitor for the 15th Judicial Circuit.
HORRY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT CORRUPTION:
A DARK AND WELL DOCUMENTED HISTORY
EXAMPLE 1: 1927 Horry County Credit Abuse Laws:
In 1927, Lairus Williamson owned a successful farm in Horry County in the Cedar Creek Community near Nichols, S.C.
Annually, during Springtime, farmers in Horry County purchased seeds, as well as feed for their cattle and horses to sustain them during the planting period. A lot of them obtained these agricultural supplies on credit from the Gallivants Ferry Store located west of Aynor, South Carolina.
In August during the harvest season, these farmers repaid the loan using earnings from tobacco sales. Irrigated fields with sprinkler systems did not exist in 1927, which was a particularly dry year. Farmers depended on the rain to survive.
Lairus Williamson, who hadn’t yielded a crop in 1927 for a lack of rain, asked the Holliday Family, proprietors of the store, for more time to repay the credit they had extended. Over many years of purchasing from the store, Lairus had never read the fine print in the document he annually signed.
In the early 1900s, the Horry County local delegation, in partnership with the S.C. General Assembly, enacted laws that permitted creditors to take possession of all items offered as loan collateral. Simply put, individuals like the Hollidays could claim ownership of an entire farm for just a sack of seeds and a portion of corn feed used to feed livestock.
Was it fair? You decide. Was it Horry County law? Yes.
What Horry County agency showed up to physically take Lairus’ livestock and remove Lairus, his wife, and family from their land on behalf of the Hollidays? Horry County law enforcement of that day.
The 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Public Law No. 91-508, later passed by the U.S. Federal Government put an end to this legalized corruption. No longer were Horry County insiders allowed to legally steal famers’ lands for a sack of seeds. Horry County legislators and S.C. Legislators could no longer wink, wink, nod, nod to the corrupt lending practices they (themselves) passed into laws to champion legalized stealing.
While these land records are public, readers might question how this Horry County journalist is personally acquainted with records dated from 1927.
In 1928, John Washington Hucks wed Rose Anne Williamson Hucks. Rose Anne was the daughter of Lairus and these were my grandparents. Lairus is my great grandfather.
A year later, Lairus passed away (a broken man). Were my Grandparents angered? Yes. Were they resentful and bitter? No. They put their hope in something better.
John Hucks became a sharecropper, with an increased resolve to carve out a life from the sandy soil that is rural S.C. in Horry County.
John Washington Hucks spent the majority of his life as a share cropper on land in Pleasant View, S.C. A share cropper is little more than an indentured servant.
EXAMPLE 2: Southern Holdings et al vs. Horry County et al
The tale about corruption involving Southern Holdings and the Horry County Police Department is so unbelievable that it can make one’s head spin. David Wren from The Sun News and Paul Gable from the Grand Strand Daily wrote extensively on this corruption during that period.
Writes Gable: In the Spring of the year 2000, Southern Holdings was a nice little corporation valued at $20 million, by independent analysts, doing business in South Carolina, North Carolina and Las Vegas, Nevada. It was owned by 75 shareholders, some of whom were residents of Horry County, with varying stock positions.
The corporation had recently gained the rights to contracts to be the exclusive marketer of cigarettes in areas of South America along with the rights to an offshore bank license and other contracts. The total value of these contracts and rights was $12-$15 million, according to corporate records.
After Southern Holdings gained the rights to these contracts, former Southern Holdings shareholder Ancil B. Garvin, III, a resident of Horry County at the time, attempted to get Southern Holdings President James Spencer to cut the remaining shareholders out of the profits.
What Spencer didn’t know then was that Garvin was selling cigarettes in the black market as well as with legitimate outlets.
In an e-mail from Garvin to Spencer in early May 2000, Garvin urged Spencer to agree to buy out the other stockholders. Garvin suggested he and Spencer could then “take the remaining $10 million of assets and retire.” Spencer refused.
After being rebuffed by Spencer, Garvin authored a memo on May 18, 2000, to Southern Holdings shareholder David Smith, in which he laid out a conspiracy to oust Spencer, illegally take over the corporation and steal the $12-15 million from the cigarette contracts.
Garvin’s plan included using a corrupt sheriff’s deputy and assistant prosecutor in North Carolina to illegally enter a fake warrant for Spencer into the FBI’s NCIC data system and then, with the help of several corrupt law enforcement officers in Horry County (Horry County Police Department), use that fake warrant to remove Spencer from the picture.
Spencer would later be falsely arrested, just as Garvin’s conspiracy planned.
Gable continues: Videotapes of the illegal arrest of Southern Holdings president James Spencer were key pieces of evidence in the lawsuit against Horry County. “All of the above anomalies collectively cast serious doubt concerning the authenticity of portions of the original videotape from which this tape was reportedly manufactured by the Horry County Police Department,” read one section of expert analyst Steve Cain’s report.
But the case grew even more bizarre as Spencer worked with his mom to prove state-wide corruption and collusion, rooted in the foundation of that same Horry County Police Department Corruption.
Spencer’s mom vanishes, Spencer accused of “abusing her”. South Carolina DSS responsible
Gable continues: For over seven years, we have reported on the lawsuit of Southern Holdings v. Horry County and various other legal machinations stemming from it.
One of these is the case of elderly Doris Holt who was illegally removed from her home by DSS in 2009 and died of malnutrition in early 2011 while under DSS care.
The original Southern Holdings et al. v. Horry County et al. lawsuit, filed in 2002, was allegedly “settled” in court on May 9, 2007 by the attorneys for the two sides and federal judge Bryan Harwell under extremely questionable circumstances not provided by law.
Doris Holt, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, was not in court on May 9, 2007, nor represented by an attorney when a supposed settlement to the Southern Holdings case was allegedly offered and no signature demonstrating her agreement to the settlement has ever been produced. She was a wild card.
After the plaintiffs in the Southern Holdings lawsuit filed a tort claims lawsuit against the state of South Carolina, among other defendants, in May 2009, state officials, threatened by the tort claims action, apparently decided to get custody of Doris Holt.
On July 27, 2009, DSS case worker Susan Stroman, without any evidence or medical reports, filed a complaint and affidavit and attempted to obtain a Court Order to take Doris Holt into protective custody. The Court Order was denied.
On July 29, 2009, Stroman changed her affidavit, adding considerably sensationalized allegations into it without any further investigation into the case or any new physical evidence or medical reports. Stroman submitted her complaint to a different Judge, according to the Clerk of Court records and obtained a protective order to take Doris Holt into custody.
South Carolina state law definitively makes such “judge shopping” on Stroman’s part illegal.
On August 3, 2009, a hearing where Holt’s son, James Spencer, another plaintiff in the Southern Holdings case, was not allowed to speak or present evidence as he was not charged with anything and therefore had no standing. Additionally, Doris Holt was not present, preventing her from speaking on her own behalf. Despite being subpoenaed, neither doctor nor nurse that supposedly treated Doris Holt’s alleged injuries on July 24, 2009, appeared in court.
It took Spencer until August 30, 2009, to legally gain access to the sealed court files, including the DSS affidavits. Just prior to the files being unsealed and the files being given to Spencer, DSS lawyers showed up at the Clerk of Courts office.
Prior to Spencer being given copies of the files he was taken upstairs to meet with other DSS lawyers. He was at that time notified DSS had changed its position regarding him having abused his mother. He was informed there was no evidence of abuse and he done a fantastic job of taking care of her.
However, Spencer was informed Doris Holt’s medical condition had worsened since she was taken into custody on July 29, 2009, and, without further explanation, he was informed his mother would be kept at the home.
DSS transferred Holt from the nursing home she was being kept at in February 2010, not notifying Spencer of the transfer and refusing to tell him of his mother’s whereabouts. The transfer came after things began heating up in the tort claims case.
Southern Holdings would be bankrupted and all of Spencer’s shares were taken. His mother would die from malnutrition under the supervision of DSS. A Federal Judgeship was guaranteed to a Florence Federal Judge who is still in office and is today close to retirement age, in connection with that same Horry County Police Department corruption.
The now retiring Federal Judge and his family have close connections to the City of North Myrtle Beach.
EXAMPLE 3: Horry County Police Detective Allen Large
MyrtleBeachSC News has written numerous articles about the corruption in the Horry County Police Department, enough to stock multiple libraries.
Our headline of May 25, 2016: Horry County Detective Troy Allen Large admits to videotaping a victim in a nude catfight.
MyrtleBeachSC News wrote: Horry County Council is now under the gun as the state law enforcement investigation of Horry County Police Department Corruption is fully underway.
A woman who claimed she was mistreated by a former detective in Horry County was supported by a federal jury, which granted her damages.
The Horry County Police Department was deemed negligent in the case, leading to a $500,000 award for Jane Doe 4 as stated in the jury’s verdict.
Separately, Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4 filed individual lawsuits accusing the late detective Troy Allen Large of abusing them, with allegations of inaction by the Horry County Police Department Chief Saundra Rhodes.
In 2014, Jane Doe 4 met Large while struggling with heroin addiction. She shared that during a ride to the store, Large mentioned accessing the police database and knowing about her past arrests and childhood sexual abuse.
According to court records, the next day, Large came to Jane Doe 4’s place, entered her bedroom, and saw her heroin needles on a shelf. Jane Doe 4 reported that Large placed his gun near the needles and coerced her into oral sex.
She further stated that in the ensuing months, Large coerced her to engage in physical altercations with other women, made inappropriate advances, and used his police vehicle to facilitate her purchase of heroin.
Large was part of the Horry County Police Department Corruption for almost 30 years. Large died on Jan. 10, 2018.
Example 4: Former Horry County Police Chief Saundra Rhodes
Rhodes retired in May 2016, and shortly after, the deputy police chief also stepped down. This all occurred during significant public attention on multiple lawsuits alleging sexual assault by former detective Allen Large and what was then an active State Law Enforcement Investigation involving multiple officers.
EXAMPLE 5: HORRY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT MISMANAGEMENT – BEACH PATROL
Poor systems and planning by HCPD leadership led to an accident waiting to happen.
A beachgoer was hit and fatally injured in 2024 by an officer from the Horry County Police Department in the Myrtle Beach region, as stated by Mikayla Moskov, the Director of Public Information.
Sandra Sandy Schultz-Peters, aged 66 and from Myrtle Beach, has been recognized as the victim. According to Horry County coroner Michelle McSpadden, her passing was a result of injuries from the event.
The event took place at the beach access on Nash Street close to Springmaid Pier.
Example 6: Officers on leave after Scott Spivey Shooting Investigation
With the continuance of the salacious Scott Spivey shooting investigation, Horry County Police Detective Paul Damon Vescovi was terminated for conduct unbecoming of an officer and “a violation of general Horry County employee conduct guidelines.”
About seven weeks after the resignation of Deputy Chief Brandon Strickland due to alleged misconduct in the Spivey investigation, Vescovi was fired. He had been part of the department since 2005.
Three police officers from Horry County are currently under disciplinary measures due to an internal affairs inquiry revealing over seven mislabeled videos related to the 2023 road rage fatality of Scott Spivey.
What Exactly Happened?
Corruption within the Horry County Police Department exacerbated an already sensational incident.
My family roots trace back to the Green Sea region in Horry County, where the Spiveys hold a strong reputation. I’ve dined at Buoys at the Beach. Although I haven’t met Weldon Boyd, our news team commended his management of a challenging situation involving the North Myrtle Beach City Manager amid the Covid-19 shutdown.
This North Myrtle Beach City Manager has since been fired.
Weldon Boyd and Scott Spivey could each be described as being tough as pine knots. Each also had the potential to go off like fat liter on that given day. Fat Liter is the stump (and tap root) that is left in the ground after a tree has fallen or has been cut. It is the resin-impregnated heartwood of tree sap that is highly flammable and extremely combustible.
Scott Spivey’s blood alcohol content was .13, leading to impairment that rendered him unfit to drive. Nonetheless, he was speeding at 100 mph along Highway 9 as indicated by the metadata.
Weldon Boyd was reportedly seen chasing Spivey at matching speeds, based on the meta data.
Fits News put out a horrifying 911 call of the incident yesterday.
The 911 crying, female caller says while driving, “I am on Highway number 9 about to come up at Minute Man and Little Ceasars right here in Longs. There is a guy that is waving a gun in front of me trying to shoot at my car and the other one’s beside us. He’s all over the road and I have his license plate number. “
Dispatcher says, “Okay… He’s waving the gun right now?”
Caller says, “He’s waving it out the window at everybody. I don’t know if he’s under the influence of anything. He’s all over the road. He just made one guy run off the road completely and he’s back on the road now. But, I’m just all to Hell because I don’t know what this man is doing.”
Dispatcher: “Okay, what color of car?”
Caller: “He is in a new body chevy. It’s a truck. It’s a GMC or a Chevrolet.”
Dispatcher: “Okay, what color?”
Caller: “Black.” “He’s pulling it out the window trying to shoot this car right now.”
Everyone in Horry County knows this was Scott Spivey and his black truck.
Another 911 call came in at around the same time from an elderly couple stating that a man in a black truck was waving a gun out of his truck window. These are known facts.
Weldon Boyd also made a now famous, 911 call.
KEY QUESTION: “If Scott Spivey feared for his life, why did he not also call 911?”
Boyd would tail Spivey at very high speeds until they reached Camp Swamp Road, where Spivey came to a halt.
Scott Spivey probably had no idea that Weldon Boyd was armed with a loaded gun.
According to police reports, Spivey discharged a full round of bullets on Camp Swamp road, where Weldon Boyd would later shoot him.
Following the incident, Boyd recorded himself making highly indefensible statements. His lawyer opted not to remove those recordings and handed over the cellphone in its original state to SLED.
Mark Tinsley’s media team and local legislators are using the post-shooting recordings as evidence to push for the reopening of the case.
Horry County, as is its history, operated unethically, unprofessionally and corruptly on that day. They also showed signs of incompetence consistent of exactly how they operate.
The Horry County Police Department Corruption is a long-standing issue in Horry County, possibly ranking as the second most corrupt county in South Carolina after Beaufort.
The corruption within the Horry County Police Department costs Horry County residents $57 million each year. These showcased instances reveal the department’s typical practices, with numerous additional examples available. To save time, we will only highlight these 6 cases in our publication at this time.
Local News Via - MyrtleBeachSC.com
