EPISODE 224: "The Foiled Plan": The Bennettsville Kidnappings

In January of 1971, two young men hatched a plan to kidnap noteworthy and wealthy people from Bennettsville,SC. Their plan was going well until they picked the wrong house and the wrong man. Their plan was futile but their motives weren't just for ransom. They were looking to make waves on a national scale.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
For over three hundred and fifty years, the state of
South Carolina has been the setting for some of the
most horrendous crimes ever committed. Some have gained global notoriety,
some have been forgotten, and others have been swept under
the rug completely. Now, two South Carolina natives and true

(00:27):
crime enthusiasts have teamed up to examine these heinous acts
in detail, giving their perspective of the evil that has
resided in the Palmetto State. You're listening to Carolina Crimes.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
And welcome back to Carolina Crimes, episode two twenty four.
I'm one of your hosts, Matt Hires, along with special
guest today Steve Renishwski. There we go. Yeah, one of
my classmates. Fantastic guy. He spent some years and years
and years and years in the US Navy. He's back.

(01:06):
Danielle is on administrative leave today, just kidding. She's our
schedules couldn't couldn't really match up. But we're over the moon,
thrilled that you joined us here today. Nevertheless, and see sir,
welcome brother. We appreciate you being here filling in for Danielle.
And he's glad to be here. He's a man of
the world. He's been everywhere with the electric chair and

(01:29):
he is. Uh. I'm super excited, man, Thank you, thank
you so much for having me. Yes, yes, and this
is gonna be a wild one. All right. I'm glad,
you're glad you're here and involved in this one. And
this is actually going to be one of our first
episodes coming out of this town in South caroly So
and it's a it's a doozy. But before we get started,

(01:51):
just like every week, just a little bit of housekeeping, sir.
If you're not already following us on social media, check
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(02:12):
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(02:34):
and we want to get some sweet Sweet Carolina Crimes
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dot com and check that out as well. So, as
we mentioned, and I don't know how many of these
episodes you've listened to, Steve, but we always start off
with a little history of where we're going, the setting
and go ahead and set the tone right then. And

(02:57):
this is I checked it out. We were around this
area in episode twenty three, the death of James Jordan,
Michael Jordan's father, And this is going to be from Bennettsville,
South Carolina. Yes, sir, So don't know if you've ever
been there or not. I have not. Yeah, I may
have been through there, but know a few people from

(03:19):
the Bennettsville area. So, Bennettsville is located in Central Marlborough
County and it also serves as the county seat, which
that's one of those weird ones here in the state
of South Carolina. Most of the time, the county seat
has the same name as the county, like York and York.

(03:39):
So Bennettsville is the county seat of Marlborough County. Now,
if you're not familiar with the state of South Carolina,
Marlborough County itself is located in northeast South Carolina. And
if you look at the shape of our state, if
you look at the map, Marlborough County is right at
that angle where the southeastern border of North Carolina starts
sloping downward right towards Orey County and Myrtle Beach. That's

(04:02):
right there in that little corner. Now, Bennettsville is considered
part of the PD region of the state of South
Carolina due to the Great Pedee River actually running right
by the town of Bennettsville. And Bennettsville itself was founded
in eighteen nineteen, and it got its name from the
governor of South Carolina at the time, Thomas Bennett. The

(04:26):
town's economy was dominated by short staple cotton in the
early years, especially with the implementation of the cotton gin.
As most of upstate South Carolina was now during the
early days I'm sorry, the ending days of the US
Civil War, Bennettsville was kind of an anomaly. Unlike most

(04:46):
of the county courthouses in the South, it was not
pillaged and burned by General William T. Sherman. Yes. In fact,
the courthouse was made his headquarters for a little while,
which meant all of the county records from the seventeen
hundreds remained intact. So that made it really a treasure
trove for genealogists. How about that. Yes. Now today Bennettsville,

(05:12):
it remains fairly rural and agrarian, and it's home to
just north of seven thousand residents. And as we always do,
we mentioned some of the more famous residents of Bennettsville
who we got all right. First off, maryon Wright Edelman.
She was an activist for civil and children's rights and
the founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Hugh McCall, the

(05:35):
retired CEO of Bank of America. I don't know if
you bank with him or not, But Lieutenant General Claudius
bud Watts the US Air Force. He was a former
president of the Citadel. And here's what we were talking
about just briefly before you got in Major League Baseball.
Umpire Jim Odom was from Bennettsville. He was a ten

(05:57):
year veteran called over fifteen hundred games, and he also
called the nineteen seventy one World Series won by your
Pittsburgh Pirates over the Baltimore Orioles in seven games. There
you go, So speaking of nineteen seventy one, we're gonna
stay there, yes, sir, And that's where our story starts

(06:18):
this week. All right, let's do it all right. Saturday night,
January sixteenth, nineteen seventy one, about eight pm, there's a
man named Wayne Chavis. He was a local barber in Bennettsville,
and he along with his wife Patricia, and their four children,
were enjoying a night at home when the unthinkable happened.

(06:41):
One of the worst things you could think of. If
I mean, you're a dad, how many kids have you got? Four?
Four children as well? So imagine relaxing night, early seventies,
probably watching he Haw or so whatever was on at
that point in time. I know we used to go
to my grandma's and Saturday night much wrestling at six
oh five. But the Chavs family, they were there at

(07:05):
home and two armed men burst through the front door.
They held the family at gunpoint. And curiously this wasn't
a robbery per se. Now, the two men that intruded
into the home, they did take a pistol and they

(07:28):
didn't go about really ransacking the home looking for valuables,
but they were more concerned really about gathering the family up.
That's when one of the men kept the gun pointed
at the Chaevises, while the other concentrated his efforts on
tying up mom, Dad, and the four kids, whose ages

(07:51):
ranged from five to twelve. Now, when the intruders were
satisfied that they had them secured, they herded the family
out and into their volts Wagon van. Now some of
the articles they say a station wagon, but court reporters,
court transcripts say a van. Now, as they stuffed the

(08:14):
Chavses in the van, one of the men told Wayne,
We're going to get all the rich people, every damn
one of them, and then they're gonna have to deal
with us. So kind of puzzled, you know, probably going
through Wayne's mind. He said, you know, I'm a barber,
you know rich, I don't know if if I fit

(08:36):
in that category, And I don't know about us. I mean,
they were doing financially well, but wouldn't be considered ultra wealthy,
especially as you know, with four children. Now, they probably
cost you quite a bit, yes, sir, Now, the Chavses
once we start looking at the bigger picture, there were

(08:57):
possibly victims of these kidnappers. Due to their vehicle. They
had a van they could fit a lot of people
in at a VW bus and after being loaded up
the two men, they drove off before pulling up to
a second home in Bennettsville. Now, just like at the Chavises,
the two armed men burst into the door and at

(09:22):
the home was Missus Francis Lindsay and her six year
old son David. Her husband was gone and not at
home at that time. Now, the two men, they then
went about tying up Miss Lindsay and also poor David,
before taking them to join the other six hostages that

(09:42):
they had in the van. But it wouldn't be long
before her husband would be home, and that was Bennettsville
attorney and State Senator John Jack Lindsay. Now the two
men they were audibly disappointed in and it became obvious
to the eight other hostages that Senator Lindsay was the

(10:05):
intended target. The van full then pulled off again towards
Lake Paul Wallace, which is a six hundred acre body
of water just north of downtown Bennettsville. Some of the
elite have homes there, of course, like they fly into water,
and they came up to a home that was the

(10:26):
home of current South Carolina State Representative Edward Cottingham. But
the kidnapping duo they ran into an unexpected bump in
the road because no one was home. Now, they decided
to go on to another home that they believed to
belong to a man by the name of Wade Crow,

(10:49):
which was Senator Lindsay's law partner. They said, okay, we're
going to get a rich lawyer again. But it turned
out that the home they finally ended up on, the
third home they stopped at, it wasn't mister Crows. It
was a home on the lake, and they soon found
out that the mistake they made going to that home

(11:11):
would be fatal. They picked the wrong house. So folks
will be right back after this quick word from our sponsors,
and we'll continue this tale from Bennettsville, South Carolina, and

(11:42):
welcome back to Carolina Crimes, Episode two twenty four out
of Bennettsville, South Carolina. As we mentioned, Danielle's on administrative leave.
We've got my man Steve Rand here. He's gonna be
kind of my sounding board my second the day. I
appreciate you co piloting alone, man, I'm man. Yes. Now,

(12:04):
as we mentioned before the break, these kidnappers, they had
rounded up the Chavises to Wayne and Patricia, their four children,
Francis Lindsay her six year old son David, and they
were on the hunt for more. And as we mentioned,

(12:25):
they made a fatal mistake, and they were messing now
with the wrong house and the wrong dude. The home
that the two men chose next belonged to former South
Carolina state representative and attorney Jamie Lee. Now Jamie Lee
he went near a typical bookworm, attorney or a desk jockey.

(12:50):
In high school, Lee had been All State in basketball
and football, made it to the Shrine Bowl. At the
age of seventeen, he joined the US Army as a paratrooper.
He was named a General Douglas MacArthur's honor guard, made
the eighty second Airborne, earned four bronze stars in Korea,

(13:14):
earned an officers commission in the US Air Force later,
and was what people called a weapons enthusiast who had
what was described as an arsenal. So a legit badass
we're talking about, no doubt, no doubt well, one of
the unsuspecting kidnappers. He ended up gaining entry into the

(13:37):
Lee home. The other stayed back in the van with
the eight hostages that they already had. And that sounds
wild even no doubt. He stayed back with the eight hostages,
but one went into the Lee home, but this time
he was using Senator Lindsay's wife Francis as a human shield. Now,

(14:03):
upon entering the home, the only person they found was
Jamie Lee's wife, Missus Lee, and they the kidnapper immediately asked,
where's your husband, and she said, he's downstairs in the
basement watching television. I mean, just imagine a Saturday night
and just imagine somebody busting your front door. They got

(14:26):
a hostage held it gunpoint and they're saying, where's your husband? Yes, sir,
So she said that he was downstairs in the basement
area watching television with their daughter. So the kidnapper then
took the two women downstairs with the pistol and confronted
mister Lee and his daughter. The kidnapper said to do

(14:48):
as he said, and if anyone didn't, he would shoot
them all. He said, now we're gonna We're gonna head
back upstairs, Yes, sir. Now on the way back up
the mister Lee was in the kind that was going
to gonna take any guph from anybody. So he grabbed
a chair and he struck the intruder over the head

(15:10):
with it, knocking him down. Momentarily cracked him over the
skull with his chair, and Missus Lee, she thought quick,
grabbed her daughter and ran upstairs to safety. Francis Lindsay,
who was the human shield, she was frozen in shock.
But mister Lee he disappeared. He couldn't be found. When

(15:33):
the intruder gained his footing, gained his whereabouts and looked
around after being cracked on the head with a chair,
It was then that he saw Jamie Lee emerging from
a bedroom with a pistol of his own. What ensued
was a Wild West style shootout that spilled out actually

(15:54):
out the front door into the yard. Now the one
kidnapper that was staying back with the high hostages he
got out and ran off on foot. He said, I
don't want any part of this anymore. Missus Chavis. She
was actually able to free herself at this point and
get behind the wheel of their Volkswagen van and drive

(16:15):
the hostages to safety. Well, when all the gun shots subdued,
Missus Lindsay ended up being shot in the leg, neck,
and shoulder and the kidnapper was shot in the face
and the shoulder. Well, the Bennettsville police arrived and Missus
Lindsay she was in satisfactory condition and Chief Marvin Driggers

(16:36):
he was able to id the kidnapper with two new
holes in his body as the twenty two year old
Bennettsville resident Charles Scales. Scales was still clinging to life
and was able to id as partner in crime as
twenty three year old Grover Bennett of Charlotte. The FBI

(16:57):
was called in and an APB was put out for Bennett.
But the question was why were they doing this? Why
were they going around Benettsville kidnapping people? Was it ransom?
Kind of? But there was also another moti of at play.
When we get back from this short break, we'll get
into exactly why these guys did that. Yes, sir, we'll

(17:19):
be right back after this quick break and welcome back

(17:42):
to Carolina Crimes, Episode to twenty four. And when we
left off these mysterious kidnappers in Bennettsville, they were id'd
as Charles Scales, a twenty two year old from Bennettsville,
and twenty three year old Grover Bennett from Arlotte, North Carolina.
Now Bennett he escaped on foot once he saw things

(18:04):
were going south at the Jamie Lee household, and they
bit off a little bit more than they could chew.
He took off and ran off. The police in Bennettsville.
They actually called this in almost immediately. The sled who
got the FBI involved. In nineteen seventy one, the FBI
director was none other than j Edgar Hoover, and he

(18:28):
put out an APB for Grover Bennett of Charlotte. Now
across the country, we talked about the motives of these guys.
They wanted ransom, but there was also another motive at
play across the country. In Monterey County, California, a year

(18:49):
to the day earlier, on January sixteenth, nineteen seventy at
Solidad State Prison, three inmates murdered a correctional office are
in retaliation of the shooting deaths of three inmates by
a guard during a fight three days earlier. So a
fight broke out on January thirteenth on the prison yard

(19:13):
one of the guards shot the three inmates. So in
retaliation of the three inmates getting shot these three inmates,
they decided to take down a co So the three
men that did this that murdered the correctional officer. They
were known as the Solidad Brothers for Solidad State Penitentiary

(19:35):
and they went on trial in August of nineteen seventy.
While in the courtroom, an armed raid of the courthouse occurred,
led by one of the defendant's seventeen year old brothers.
The men that took the courtroom under siege. They took

(19:56):
five hostages and the result of the ad left three
wounded and Judge Harold Haley dead due to a shotgun
blast to the face. Damn. Now. During this investigation, after
these the guys that stormed the courthouse, they were taken
into custody. It was found out that the guns that

(20:21):
were provided to these young people to take over the
courthouse and try to free these three defendants who murdered
the correctional officer. The guns had been provided by an
openly communist professor at UCLA by the name of Angela
Davis now in California. At the time, they observed the

(20:47):
law the hand of one was the hand of all
that mantra man So a warrant was issued for Angela
Davis's arrest on the charges of kidnapping and first degree
murder for the murder of Judge Hayley. But Davis she
decided to go on the run. J Edgar Hoover at

(21:11):
the time he also again put her on the FBI's
ten Most Wanted lists. She was only the third. Yeah,
she was the only the third woman at that point
in time to ever be put on that list. Well,
after a couple months of trying to track her down,
she was finally found and arrested at a Howard Johnson's
in New York City. Man Now she had become a

(21:35):
worldwide political martyr in the eyes of Marxists and communists,
and prior to her arrest, she had been a well
known speaker and far left wing political activists and was
admired by many. At this time, there were a lot
of if you think back to the time period we're
talking nineteen seventy, middle of the Vietnam War, a lot

(21:57):
of protests going on, a lot of sympathy for the
commune his side, and she spoke up for these folks beliefs. Now,
one of the people that really did admire Angela Davis
was twenty three year old Grover Bennett of Charlotte and
twenty two year old Charles Scales of Bennettsville. Now what

(22:18):
their plan was, according to literature found and manifestos found
in the investigation of their crimes, and actually it was
written up in The New York Times. Bennett and Scales
their plan was to kidnap prominent people and their families
and exchange them for both ransom and for the release

(22:39):
of Angela Davis. Now, one of the people that they
had planned to kidnap, actually they found out after the fact,
was Charlotte mayor John Belk around this areas out John
Belk Freeway and the founder and owner of Belt Department Stores. Wow.

(23:00):
So these guys, they had a plan that they put
in place, and they were executing it pretty well until
they ran up on Jamie Lee Well on January seventeenth.
Grover Bennett, he finally turned up one day after the kidnappings.
He turned up at the Columbia, South Carolina Residents of
ACLU attorney Laughlin MacDonald. Bennett asked him to represent him

(23:26):
and to call the police he wanted to go ahead
and turn himself inep on January thirtieth, thirteen days later,
Charles Scales, the other co conspirator and kidnapper, ended up
succumbing to his gunshot wounds and passing away in the hospital.
No doubt, Grover Bennett, he ended up going on trial

(23:49):
and was tried on charges of kidnapping, robbery, burglary, and
assault and assaultant battery with attempt to ill. He applied
for a change of venue to Chesterfield County and tried
to even get out of that district for the courts,
but the Supreme Court of South Carolina did block that

(24:10):
and so that he had to go on trial in Chesterfield,
South Carolina, and on May one of nineteen seventy one,
Grover L. Bennett he was sentenced to life in prison
and currently he's not in sc DC, so he is
possibly deceased. An update in Missus lindsay she did actually

(24:31):
recover from all her wounds, and this is kind of
a ironic fact. After the matter that Angela Davis, she
was not released and went on trial and on June fourth,
nineteen seventy two, was found not guilty for any involvement
in the Solidad Brothers courthouse raid, So all of that

(24:54):
would have been for naught anyway. Man, That's a mess
right there. That is that is so eight people ended
up kidnapped, poor missus Francis Lindsay shot three times, thank god,
she did recover. And these two gentlemen once spent life

(25:16):
in prison. He did try to appeal, it looked like,
but was denied, and the other one succumbed to his
wounds trying to get a lady from out of incarceration.
That ended up getting found not guilty anyway, man. And
I don't know if she even knew their names or
knew that they were doing this. She wasn't definitely wasn't

(25:38):
a part of the conspiracy whatsoever. And she's still a
professor at this point in time. She's been to UC
San Diego and I believe cal and a few other
places too. So a mind blowing case, a wild one.
I know, it was a little bit of a shorter
episode this week, but that was a story that we

(25:59):
came up on and had to glean what we could
from the news articles. But uh, wow, well case, yeah,
no doubt man, yes, So I guess luckily for the hostages,
they weren't injured. With the exception of Miss Lindsay and
Representative Jamie Lee, he had the wherewithal to pull his

(26:22):
gun and to put an end to that kidnappings. Free. Well, Steve,
we appreciate you being here. Yeah this week. Wow, he
threw a lot at me right here. Yeah. Man, that
is something special. Yeah, that's that's something out of the
ordinary for sure. But we appreciate you all listening this

(26:46):
week here to episode two twenty four. I believe Danielle
will be back next week. We're going to try to
coordinate our schedules a little better for you and a
few things here at the end, as we always do.
If you're not already following us on social media, check
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(27:06):
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(27:30):
next week, We want to say thank you to Steve
Franshwski for filling in today and thank you for listening
to Carolina Crimes