2024 was a year of tremendous achievement for the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office. Consider:
- Our Career Criminal Unit sent 26 of the circuit’s most violent and habitual offenders to prison, and three of those defendants received life sentences.
- Our innovative approach to docket management helped us reduce our number of pending cases by more than a quarter and double the number of cases we disposed of, compared to 2023.
- Our Victims Services Center, already distinguished as South Carolina’s first accredited Family Justice Center, was also designated as a Level 2 Sexual Assault Forensic Excellence facility. We are the first in the Lowcountry to earn this accolade.
To celebrate these achievements, let’s also look back at our five most-viewed videos on Facebook and YouTube.
5. Closing a sad circle of generational violence
The 2016 murder of Devonte Freeman in Ridgeland, S.C., and the 2022 sexual assault of a Port Royal woman were not directly related. However, they shared a thread — a common defendant and a history of shocking familial violence. This is how the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office brought them to justice.
4. She snapped the last face she ever saw — the abusive ex-boyfriend who killed her
Donasia Holloway-Epps of Walterboro, S.C., knew something was off when the pick-up truck turned in behind her at her apartment complex. She parked next to a police cruiser, but it her no good. This is how Hunter Swanson of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and investigators from the Walterboro Police Department and Colleton County Sheriff’s Office brought Donasia’s killer to justice.
3. Victim gives nickname of killer with dying breath
Samquan “Chuck” Frazier thought it was his lucky night. Then, “Hustle Man” came to steal the money he won shooting dice. He took Frazier’s life, too. But his last words helped 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office prosecutor Trasi Campbell convict the man who robbed and killed him.
2. Self defense or manslaughter? Parking lot shooting in Estill, SC caught on camera
Tiffany Owens claimed she shot 37-year-old Tijuana Demetrius Johnson in self defense outside an Estill, S.C., grocery store in May 2021. Do a 9-1-1 call by Owens’ mother and surveillance footage from the store tell a different story? Prosecutor Reed Evans of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office thinks so, but can he convince a jury?
1. Mother, boyfriend leave disabled daughter to die inside broiling vehicle
The most-viewed video of 2024 was actually posted in September 2023 and has garnered more than 1 million, with more than 213,000 of them coming in 2024. It is our third most-watched video of all-time, and it is not difficult to understand why.
On a hot August day in 2019, cerebral palsy victim Cristina Pangalangan was placed in the back seat of a Volkswagen Jetta by her mother, Rita, and Rita’s boyfriend, Larry King. The car was not running. Cristina Pangalangan was left there for nearly six hours. At some point during that duration, she died of hyperthermia, as the heat index inside the car rose as high as 135 degrees. The events of that day in Colleton County, S.C., were captured on King’s home surveillance system and in a 9-1-1 call he placed after Cristina was discovered dead.
The surveillance video proved to be a key piece of evidence in this atrocious death, and it drew outrage from our viewers – it has received nearly 3,000 comments on YouTube alone.
Bonus. They left a child in car to bake to death; the closing argument that sealed their fate
Rita Pangalangan and Larry King were by Solicitor Duffie Stone. A video of his closing argument is both compelling and a textbook example for prosecutors aspiring to explain a complex legal theory to a jury. It has gathered more than 36,000 views since its initial posting in September 2023.
