August 10, 2025 • 38 mins
In September of 2019, a local mail carrier in Williamsburg County was going about her daily routine and following protocol when a disgruntled resident on her route did the unthinkable.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
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
(00:26):
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 (00:43):
And welcome back to Carolina Crimes, episode two thirty four.
I'm one of your hosts, Matt Hires, and I promised
her I wouldn't say it this week, but Daniel's on
administrative leave. No, she's not. I told her I wouldn't
say it. This is this, This is impromptu. This is
something fun we've had planned for quite a while. Longtime
(01:06):
listener friend of the show, Julie Kane. She is in
the studio and she has her sisters with her that
are visiting listeners of the show all the way from
the left coast from Oregon. She's got the Britton Matthews
say hello, hey everybody, and her sister Nicole Hill, Hi,
you can do better than that.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I thank you so much for having us on.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, no problem, but you're gonna have to speak up,
so all right, But thank you so much for listening.
We appreciate it. You're not from South Carolina, you got
loose ties. Your sister lives here and I'm just a
yokul that works with her at my nine to five.
But we appreciate y'all so much, and this is gonna
be a lot of fun. It is. Thank you, Thank
(01:51):
you for joining me again. Daniel's okay, she's not on
administrative leave. She's not sick, she's just this was an impromptu,
a planned impromptu. That's right. That's right here for episode
two thirty four. And before we get started, as we
always do, just want to remind everybody, if you're not
already following us on social media, check us out over
(02:13):
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about the show or your pet's names. We really like those,
(02:34):
and we like to give you shout outs at the
end every other week. Also, if you want some sweet
sweet swag for your back. It's actually cooling down in
South Carolina. Y'all picked a great week to come. It
is a little rainy, sorry about that, but at least
it's not one hundred and ninety eight degrees outside. Yes,
(02:59):
we appreciate y'all bringing that with you so much. But yes,
if you're looking for some hoodies, some back to school
stuff for your kids, if it's appropriate, don't send them
to kindergarten, and a Carolina Crime shirt. I should go unsaid,
but head on over to Carolina crimestore dot com. We
would greatly appreciate it. So y'all are all into true crime?
(03:23):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay? And podcast shows.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Shows for me, and then I think Nichole's podcast yeah,
and Julie you're well I'm TV podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah. And you're the infamous one that you said you
use my voice to go to sleep sometime, so it's
very soothing. Well I appreciate that. Well, So however, you listen,
we appreciate you. And today we're actually going to go
to a locale if you're not familiar with the show,
if this is your first time listening, I'm sure you'
all gonna tell a lot of friends. We talk a
little bit about the setting of where we're going, and
(03:59):
this is a county that we've only been to, I
think one time before in two hundred and thirty four episodes.
But it's Williamsburg County here in South Carolina, and it's
actually located in the eastern central portion of the state.
It's just west of Georgetown County, which is on the coast,
which is Sandwich there between Forrey County, Myrtle Beach, that
(04:23):
area and Charleston, so it's right there, and it's Williamsburg's
just west of Georgetown, and it's east of Clarendon County.
I've gotten an argument today with a friend of mine
about whether this is included in the pd region or not.
I include just about everything in the Pede region just
to make him mad and kishim off because he's from Camden,
(04:45):
and I say, oh, Camden's in the PDE and no
it's not. No, it's not, and it's really not. But
I like to include everything. So we're talking about Williamsburg
County today and Williamsburg County was founded in seventeen eighty five,
and the county's namesake was King William the third of England,
who was also known as William the Orange. I kind
(05:06):
of had to look into that. It was more of
a family family thing. Yeah, And I didn't really go
down that rabbit hole. We didn't have that much time
this week. Williamsburg, the land that it was eventually situated on,
was originally home to the Wheti, Winya, and Mingo Native
American tribes who all lived in the vicinity of the
(05:28):
Black River. Now interesting story and interesting facts about Williamsburg County.
This is super cool. During the American Revolution, Williamsburg County,
they had a lot of Scotch Irish Presbyterians that were
settled in the area, and when the Revolution broke out,
(05:49):
some of the elders that are like, you know, we
want to set this one out. You know, we don't.
We're not gonna be loyalists. I don't know if we're
going to be patriots. But some of the younger men
there Williamsburg, they're like, hell, yeah, we're gonna fight England.
We're gonna go down. We heard there's a siege in Charleston.
We're gonna go down to Charleston and defend you know,
(06:10):
what we think's right. So those guys went down there,
and unfortunately for them, the British did capture the city
of Charleston. Well down in Charleston, the British they did say, well, okay,
you came down here from Williamsburg County. What we're gonna
do is parole you. I'm putting that in quotation Mark
(06:31):
Air quotes. You can't see that, but they're gonna parole
you young men, and we're gonna send you back home. So
no harm, no foul. We went down there, we got
beat and we got in a little bit of trouble,
but they let us come home. Well, then the British
made a fatal mistake. They said, okay, what we're gonna
(06:53):
do now is this was orders from the colonial or
governor put into power by the British. He said, I'm
gonna make an order and a decree that all those
that have been paroled by the Crown previously, as a
condition of your parole, you must now take up arms
and fight for the king. So he changed the rules
(07:15):
on him and the people in Williamsburg County they said,
you know, that is a unilateral violation of the terms
of parole. So now we're gonna get involved. They formed
a very fierce militia, gave a middle finger to King
George the Third, and they chose and I don't know,
(07:38):
being from Oregon, how much you know about South Carolina history,
but they chose Francis Marion to be their leader, the
swamp Fox. If you've seen the movie The Patriot with
Mel Gibson, that's who his character was based off of.
So now it was on. They had resounding victory. After victory,
(08:03):
they hidden the swamps. They used guerrilla warfare, and Williamsburg
County was Actually, it gets me to this point. Williamsburg
County was the only area that was never ever occupied
by any British troops in South Carolina. Wow, so cool. Yes, yeah,
So that was our fun history fact about Williamsburg Today.
(08:26):
The population of Williamsburg County's thirty one thousand, and their
economies driven by manufacturing, retail, and public administration jobs and
some of the more famous residents from Williamsburg County. It's
very small in population, but they had some heavy hitters.
Mary Gordon Ellis, she was the first woman elected to
(08:48):
the South Carolina Legislature in nineteen thirty four. Also Joseph Goldstein.
He was born in Williamsburg and he was the nineteen
eighty five Nobel Prize winner in Phisiology and Medicine for
his studies with cholesterol and LDL receptors. It's something way
way out of my above my pay grade. Also from
(09:12):
Williamsburg County R and B singer Maxine Brown. And also
Louise Fulton. She was a professional bowler and she was
the first African American female to win a professional tournament.
And finally from Williamsburg County, Judge Clifton Newman. He's a
South Carolina circuit judge. He's presided over some pretty famous cases,
(09:37):
most recently including the Murdock trial. So friend of the show,
Judge Clifton Newman. So today we're going to go back,
but not too far in the past for this story,
and it's going to be from twenty nineteen, and we're
first going to talk about a Williamsburg County resident, sixty
(09:59):
four year old Irin Presley now Irene. She lived in Andrews,
South Carolina, which is right on the border with Williamsburg
in Georgetown County. So in the eastern portion of the county.
Miss Irene. She was a devoted wife to her husband
of thirty six years, Sonny. She was also the loving
(10:22):
mother of five four boys and one girl. By twenty nineteen,
she had seventeen grandchildren and one great grandchild, so she
had her hands full, but she was a go getter.
I mean she made sure all of them were good
and she took care of her priorities. Irene was super
(10:46):
involved in her community, especially her church, which was Saint
John amy Zion. She sang in the choir, she served
on the mission board, and she volunteered where she could
and was a mentor to young women in the community.
Irene was also the founder of Meals on Wheels in Andrews.
(11:10):
She loved fishing, singing, and reading her Bible and for work.
She was a mail carrier for the US Postal Service
since the nineties, so she'd been employed there for over
twenty years. Would be such a sweet job, Yes, a
federal job, federal benefit, that's walk every day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
It'd be great.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, well, she wrote around it was a little bit
of a rural area, but we still do have a
lot of walk walk and mailmen here. Yeah, we do.
In Oregon too. Okay, okay, we do write. I live
about one hundred yards from here, so yes, now, everyone
at the post office they loved Irene. They said that
(11:53):
she was considered their work mama. She would take care
of them. She certainly had experienced doing so with five children.
On Monday, September twenty third, twenty nineteen, there was a
call that came into the Williamsburg County Sheriff's office. It
(12:17):
was that a mail truck was seen in a ditch
off of Senate Road. Said it was off the road,
right off of where miss Irene's route would have been,
and it was at the entrance road to a hunt club.
Down the ditch. There's sandy soil down there. The topography
(12:38):
of that place, it's, like I said, sandy. But it
was more than likely a dirt road if it was
leading to a hunt club. Big shoulders off to the side,
fire brakes in that area, a lot of timbers, so
the ditches were pretty deep. Well. When authorities arrived, they
(12:59):
found the truck and almost immediately they spotted trouble. They
saw several bullet holes in the back of the truck.
So they approached kind of cautiously and when they opened
the truck, they saw just complete disarray packages mail. They
(13:22):
were strown about the cargo hold, and they're amongst them
lay the lifeless body of sixty four year old Irene Presley.
So we're gonna take a short break and we're gonna
get into exactly what befell Miss Presley and see if
we can make sense of what happened. Folks will be
(13:44):
right back after this quick word from our sponsors, Hi friends,
Matt Hires here. One of my favorite parts of bringing
(14:05):
you Carolina Crimes each week is spotlighting the many wonderful
towns and communities within our great state. And today I'm
proud to encourage you all to check out one of
my personal favorites. Rather on a road trip or a
weekend getaway, discover Mullins.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Once a vibrant depot town and the former tobacco capital
of South Carolina, Mullins is a hidden treasure in the
PD region. Explore our offerings by savoring a cup of
coffee at our delightful coffee shop, enjoying lunch at any
of our charming restaurants, visiting Old Brick Square, and shopping
at our quaint retail stores, which include an antique market
(14:44):
located in a repurposed tobacco warehouse. Your visit would not
be complete without a stop at the South Carolina Tobacco Museum,
situated in the historic train depot in downtown Mullens, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Here you can explore various exhibits such as my of
tobacco plants at each growth stage, a blacksmith shop, a
log tobacco barn filled with cured tobacco, a farmhouse kitchen
showcasing vintage equipment, and a photo gallery highlighting contemporary tobacco practices.
The Mullins Room honors our town's origins and its swift
(15:18):
growth driven by the railroad and the tobacco industry. Additionally,
in late June twenty twenty five, the Reverend Daniel Simmons
Museum will open its doors to the public. Within the
Tobacco Museum, Reverend Simmons was one of the victims of
the Mother Emmanuel nine tragedy, and he spent his childhood
in Mullins and worked in its tobacco warehouses. Thanks to
(15:40):
a generous loan from his daughter Rose, we will exhibit
many of his personal belongings, including his beloved Bible, the
documentary of his life, One Last Breath, will be continuously
streamed in the museum. Rather it's for a road trip
or a weekend getaway, Mullins is a perfect place to visit,
a place to call home. Visit Mullins, South Carolina, and
(16:16):
welcome back to Carolina Crimes episode two thirty four with
our special guests from the state of Oregon. Of course,
Julie Britton and Nicole are sisters. We're welcome welcoming them
into the Carolina Crimes family. Longtime listeners. We certainly appreciate it.
And they had all kinds of questions on break. They
(16:38):
bannered back and forth about hunt clubs. So I promise
they're not mute, and I promise they're really here in
the studio. I told them. I was like, hey, y'all
got to speak up. This is the kind of stuff
we need on the air at Nervous.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
And we don't have hunting clubs in Oregon, right, Like
we hunt a lot in Oregon, Yeah, a hunter, but
like we don't have hunting clubs.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, And they're they're prevalent a lot around the low country,
around Williamsburg County, Carleton County, Orangeburg, all over the place
and basically a group gets together with some land. It
could be leased, it could be family owned, and a
pool of guys get together pay their dues and they
(17:19):
go out there and they have organized hunts. And we
talked about the Yeah, and we talked about in the
lower part of the state. Williamsburg County included. I believe,
correct me if I'm wrong, listeners, but I believe that's
one of the counties where they use dogs to run deer,
just like Carleton County, Orangeburg and lower part of the state.
(17:42):
I think. So they're all animal people, Nicole Britton and
Julie So, yeah, and I have a.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Hound dog, yes too, but she's mixed with a guardian livestock,
so it's kind of counterproductive.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, they those are And your hound dog won't hunt,
you said no.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
She is petrified of loud noises, so she does not
like gunshots, just like fireworks. She doesn't like thunderstorms, so
she would make a horrible.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Hunting talk probably, So she's safe in the house.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Overweight, and she probably would have a heart attack running
me too, exactly, me too.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So when we left off Miss Irene Pressley, she was
found in her mail truck right off a Senate road
there in Williamsburg County, pulled into a ditch and investigators
found her deceased. The entire truck had been rifled through.
(18:43):
They were like, whoa, you know, who in the world
could have done this, Why in the world would they
do this? And what's this all about? So you can
say it out loud.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tax return tracks is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Or social Security? That's good, yes, but Williamsburg County Sheriffs,
they got involved. And one thing that people that perpetrated
this didn't really have the forethought to think about, you're
(19:19):
messing with the mail. Now the FBI is involved, Now,
the US Postal Inspectors are involved. And I didn't even
know they had these things until I read about this,
but postal police, so they were called in on the scene,
and they have them in Charlotte. In Charlotte, North Carolina,
(19:41):
where where these folks were out of David McGinnis, he
was a spokesman for the US Postal Service, also sled
the State Law Enforcement Division. They were involved as well,
and they all descended on this scene. And if anything,
this story proves you don't mess with a federal worker,
(20:02):
and especially somebody that was this beloved in the community.
Because now the communities behind her, you got Washington, d C.
Behind her, you're gonna get found. So evidence it began
to be gathered, and it appeared by where the truck
was found that Miss Presley she would have been on
(20:22):
her normal route or not very far from She didn't
amend that very much, but not too far from where
the mail truck was found. Several two twenty three shell
casings were found, and David McGinnis that we mentioned with
the US Postal Service, he eventually asked the public, Hey,
(20:47):
we need any information leading to an arrest in this case. Also,
the federal government put up a reward that was offered
for any information leading to an arrest. And investigators they
started to collect this evidence, they started to peruse it,
and they said, Okay, what we're going to do is
(21:08):
start looking for They went kind of old school. You
hear about DNA all the time, but they said, we're
going to start looking for latent prints and we're going
to start combing the area because it looks like this
male has been rifled through, some envelopes opened, some packages opened,
and I would think this was kind of would kind
(21:31):
of be hard as much and as many hands as
mail goes through with.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Single print off of it after it's gone through.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and all the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
People all had fingerprints, right, yeah, all the postal workers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So fingerprints, Yes, that's a bigger that's a that's an
alien podcast, that's not right. So yes, if they don't
have fingerprints. And we had a case way back at
the start of this where investigators are trying to find
hair in a barbershop, and I can think this might
(22:10):
have been around the same thing. So also throughout the
community they started looking, they were able to find some clues.
They found some more shellcasings about three miles away, also
found a package that had been opened and tossed, and
so they started really narrowing in. Okay, we've got all
(22:34):
these fingerprints. What we're going to do is we're going
to send these prints to APHIS, which is the FBI's
fingerprint database, and what it is is previous offenders, mostly federal,
mostly violent criminals. I don't think for like speeding or
(22:56):
maybe a DUI or something like that, or checks. I
don't know if those and that's a that's a Danielle question.
She's on ad ministrative lead. I don't know if they're
including included in APHIS or not, like in a jail.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I don't always think yeah exactly, they don't always do
it either.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
In Britain, you're your husband's a police officer. Maybe he
can answer that for Uce. With all those it's possible. Yeah,
and Chad, we've heard all kinds of stories about you
doing the break. Yeah, you sound you sound awesome by
the way. So all these prints in this case, they
were sent to APHIS looking for previous offenders. Specifically, they
(23:42):
were looking for anyone in the Andrews area, in the
Williamsburg County area, anyone with a record. So this happened
on a Monday, and some results started to pop back
later that week and they found a head of interest.
(24:04):
There was a print belonging to a young man that
lived at eighty fifty six Thirdgood Marshall Highway in Andrews,
which was a home that Irene Presley delivered to. Not
only did he have a record, but he had a
pretty extensive record included, going back to the Williamsburg County
(24:27):
Public Index, he had been arrested for malicious injury to property,
for burglary, and for two larceny arrests. You're gonna say, well,
why is he out? It's because he is only twenty
two years old. His name was Trevor ray Kwan Seward.
(24:48):
And when we get back from this short break, we're
gonna learn more about mister Seward and really what went
on that day. Folks will be right back after this
quick word from our sponsors and welcome back to Carolina Crimes,
(25:19):
Episode to thirty four out of Williamsburg County. And we
just had to do a redo. We were talking, we
were enjoying ourselves, we were getting on with this episode,
and then I looked and said, hey, we're not recording,
so we were back. We had a lot of practice
at this. But as we mentioned before the break, police
(25:41):
they investigated the mail truck. They started looking for fingerprints
they were sending them to Aphus. They actually found a
package not too far away from the mail truck along
with shell casings, and the fingerprint on the box belonged
to h Trevor ray Kwan Seward, who was twenty two
(26:03):
years old. Now Trevor back at his home there on
Thirdgood Marshall Highway, he had surveillance cameras and y'all, y'all
asked and it seemed that it was commercial, something put
up by mister Seward or his parents or a landlord.
(26:24):
We don't really know his living situation with the property,
but those cameras were present, so the FBI sled they
wanted to look at those. They were able to subpoena
and get access from rather the company, the homeowner or
maybe by subpoena or mister Seward himself to take a
(26:44):
look at those. Well, that Monday, September twenty third, twenty nineteen,
the camera picked up actually Irene Presley. She was seen
putting a slip into mister Seward's box. Now this was
a package pickup slip and we had a good, good
(27:07):
talk about it that didn't get recorded. But what that
was was if mail carriers, if there's a package that's
too large, they couldn't fit it on the truck, or
they couldn't put it at a home, or problem with it,
or there was a problem with it's something just didn't
look right or smell right. They were like, Okay, we're
(27:27):
gonna give you a pickup slip. You're gonna have to
come down to the post office, sign for it and
take it from there. This is above mail carrier pay grade.
I'm taking this back to the post office. Here's your slip.
It belongs to you. Well, Seward came out and saw
(27:49):
this package slip instead of the package that he was expecting,
so he left his home and later on it was
found out that he had stopped Miss Presley on her
route to confront her about his package. And I would
assume it went something like, I'm sorry, baby, you're gonna
have to go to post office and get your package.
(28:11):
And he had to live with it, like, I am
not relinquishing this package to you. You are going to
have to go to the post office. Well, on the cameras,
Trevor Seward was seen returning home and within the hour
he was picked up by a friend who was identified
(28:31):
as thirty one year old Jerome Davis. Well Seward he
came out, obviously he was going to get a ride
from Jerome Davis, but he came out carrying his AR
fifteen with him. So Trevor Seward and Jerome Davis were
(28:52):
certainly wanted for questioning, to say the least. They were
found pretty quickly and Davison Seward they were separated. They
were asked what happened and Davis and Seward. Their stories
kind of matched up, at least Davis's did. He was
(29:14):
very cooperative and he said that he and Trevor Seward
they drove Miss Presley's route trying to catch up to
her and to overtake her. When they finally did that,
they passed her and they're like, okay, well she's probably
going this way on Senate Road. So Davis dropped off
(29:36):
Seward on Senate Road with his AR fifteen, and Seward
laid in wait with the gun. When missus Presley drove by,
Trevor Seward popped out, shot twenty times into the rear
of the mail vehicle. Yes, shoot and obviously incapacitating miss Presley.
(30:03):
I'm not sure if she died immediately from her wounds,
but she was hit by several rounds.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Let's say she did that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
She did not suffer I hope. So Uh then admitted, well,
this is what happened, Davis. Yes. So Seward then jumped
in and drove the mail truck three miles to the
Hunt Club Access Road, where Jerome Davis returned to pick
(30:30):
him up with Yes. So why did they do this?
Why is this so important? Why was this mail or
this package worth killing over.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Was it from Oregon?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Close? Because they had and you're absolutely right. Seward and
Davis were expecting a shipment of two pounds of marijuana
to be delivered from the well. It was rather and
I've seen it in both two different articles, from California
or Colorado. One of the two. It's one article said Colorado.
(31:09):
It's from California, one said Colorado. So Irene Pressley, something
tipped her off in that vehicle in the mail truck.
She thought the package was suspicious, so she left that
pickup slip instead of delivering it. The amount of the
drugs was about twenty six hundred dollars street value. I
(31:32):
don't kill no nothing worth killing over, but twenty six
hundred dollars so. On Sunday, September twenty ninth, twenty nineteen,
twenty year old Trevor Rakwan Seward was arrested and charged
with the following possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,
(31:56):
conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, and the
biggie murder of a federal employee in the course of
her duties, Hecky Jerome Davis. When they caught up to
him he was charged with murder, robbery, and conspiracy to
(32:19):
possess marijuana with intent to distribute. So these trials were
not held in South Carolina Circuit court. These were federal
federal court, federal court. So this federal trial, it was
presided over by US District Judge Donald Coggins, and it
(32:42):
commenced in January of twenty twenty three. Oh wow, that
was like Jerome Davis. He pled guilty to robbery, conspiracy
to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, and once the
store where he panned out, his murder charge was dropped.
(33:03):
So if you think about it, that's really.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
He didn't know he was going to want to do
something bad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
He did, I think you can't. I think he and
he dropped him off, picked him up a couple of miles,
And I think for pleading guilty he probably got a
lesser He probably got a lesser sentence, and probably for
telling the story and cooperating with the police.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I think it was a long ways.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
So the murder charge was dropped, but he received a
sentence of twenty five years twenty for the robbery, five
for the conspiracy to possess marijuana with an intent to
distribute and they were to be served consecutively. And I
(33:50):
found this out. It's interesting that there is no parole
in the federal system. So it's twenty five years, okay.
So next on the stand was Trevor Riekwan Seward. He
was found guilty of all the charges that he was
(34:11):
charged with, and again those were possession of a firearm
by convicted felon conspiracy, possessed marijuana with intend to distribute,
and the murder of a federal employee in the course
of her duties. Seward was sentenced to life plus twenty
years to be served consecutively for the robbery. For the robbery, yes,
(34:34):
the robbery got him another twenty after he's already dead.
And the loss of Miss Irene Presley, she left a
legacy of love and a hole in the hearts of
her family, her church, family, and her community and they
continue to remember her.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
What a cool legacy though with the.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Mills on wheels, Yes, and it sounded like and I
hate it even more. I mean, it's it's despicable either way.
It's a tragedy. But she was so close to retirement
and she was in good health. You see these pictures
of her awesome lady. And you know, she had all
(35:18):
these grandkids. She was starting to have some great grandkids.
She was able to finally kind of start enjoying her
life spending time with them fishing. She loved to do
that in serving her community.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I always thought that when a package was held air quote,
that that was done at the post office. I didn't
know that it was the postal workers. I didn't know
how to decide if they could deliver a packager.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I didn't know that they had that authority either. Or
maybe somebody from the post office was like, here's this package.
I don't know it should be delivered. Here's some package,
slip you you make the call. I'm not I'm not
sure how that works. My step mom was a I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I was always mailing stuff that if it was leaking,
they threw it away. They didn't call you to come
get it, they just tossed it.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I was like, oh, okay, don't put anything liquid in there.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Well, ask you if you're shipping liquids when you give
them a box.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Or corrosives or batteries or anything like that. But they
have two pounds of marijuana in this box. They don't
ask you that they don't orgon. They don't well, yeah,
or in California or wherever they were shipping it from. Yeah,
they probably certainly wouldn't bat any in some of the
all those states. Yeah, Yeah, they wouldn't bat deny to
being shipped. So that's a that's another thing to think about,
(36:42):
taking a consideration.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
That's so sad. It is, it is, and she was.
She was well remembered, and a lot of people they were.
They had a seventy man task force working on this
for a week.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
That's why I got quickly.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, they're going to bust that whoever did this, And
I'm glad they did. I'm glad they did. But our
hearts go out of her family, sympathy for the community,
her church family. She was well remembered. Miss Irene Presley. Well,
I want to thank you all for listening this week.
I want to thank our special guests Julie Nicole Britton.
(37:21):
Thank you for visiting us from Oregon. Thank you for
listening way out there. Now we get the statistics of
where people listen from, and we see it from Oregon
all the time. It has a little spike and all
over the world, and we appreciate all of you reach
out to us. Of course, like we said on our
(37:41):
social media on Facebook at Carolina Crimes Podcast, we'll put
some pictures up. You can put some faces with some
names with this case. Also over on Twitter at sc
Crimes pod. In addition to that, if you're looking to
support the show, and you can do it for free,
if you're listening on Apple iTunes or Apple podcast or Spotify,
(38:03):
give us a five star review. Please mash that purple
subscribe button and tell us what you like about the show,
what you're having for dinner, are your pets' names, or
what color shirt you're wearing today. It just helps their algorithm.
I don't know. Also, if you're looking to support the
show and get some cool back to school clothes rather
you're going to school or you're sixty five years old,
(38:25):
check out Carolina Crimestore dot com. We would certainly appreciate that.
But ladies, thank you so much for being here. We hope,
we hope this is a good experience. Daniel will be
back next week, I promise, and until then, thank you
for listening to Carolina Crimes.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Thank you
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
(00:26):
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 (00:43):
And welcome back to Carolina Crimes, episode two thirty four.
I'm one of your hosts, Matt Hires, and I promised
her I wouldn't say it this week, but Daniel's on
administrative leave. No, she's not. I told her I wouldn't
say it. This is this, This is impromptu. This is
something fun we've had planned for quite a while. Longtime
(01:06):
listener friend of the show, Julie Kane. She is in
the studio and she has her sisters with her that
are visiting listeners of the show all the way from
the left coast from Oregon. She's got the Britton Matthews
say hello, hey everybody, and her sister Nicole Hill, Hi,
you can do better than that.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I thank you so much for having us on.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, no problem, but you're gonna have to speak up,
so all right, But thank you so much for listening.
We appreciate it. You're not from South Carolina, you got
loose ties. Your sister lives here and I'm just a
yokul that works with her at my nine to five.
But we appreciate y'all so much, and this is gonna
be a lot of fun. It is. Thank you, Thank
(01:51):
you for joining me again. Daniel's okay, she's not on
administrative leave. She's not sick, she's just this was an impromptu,
a planned impromptu. That's right. That's right here for episode
two thirty four. And before we get started, as we
always do, just want to remind everybody, if you're not
already following us on social media, check us out over
(02:13):
on Facebook at Carolina Crimes Podcast. Also over on Twitter
at sc Crimes Pod. If you're looking to support the
show and you're listening on Apple iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
please throw us a five star review, mash that purple
subscribe button, and tell us a little something you like
about the show or your pet's names. We really like those,
(02:34):
and we like to give you shout outs at the
end every other week. Also, if you want some sweet
sweet swag for your back. It's actually cooling down in
South Carolina. Y'all picked a great week to come. It
is a little rainy, sorry about that, but at least
it's not one hundred and ninety eight degrees outside. Yes,
(02:59):
we appreciate y'all bringing that with you so much. But yes,
if you're looking for some hoodies, some back to school
stuff for your kids, if it's appropriate, don't send them
to kindergarten, and a Carolina Crime shirt. I should go unsaid,
but head on over to Carolina crimestore dot com. We
would greatly appreciate it. So y'all are all into true crime?
(03:23):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay? And podcast shows.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Shows for me, and then I think Nichole's podcast yeah,
and Julie you're well I'm TV podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah. And you're the infamous one that you said you
use my voice to go to sleep sometime, so it's
very soothing. Well I appreciate that. Well, So however, you listen,
we appreciate you. And today we're actually going to go
to a locale if you're not familiar with the show,
if this is your first time listening, I'm sure you'
all gonna tell a lot of friends. We talk a
little bit about the setting of where we're going, and
(03:59):
this is a county that we've only been to, I
think one time before in two hundred and thirty four episodes.
But it's Williamsburg County here in South Carolina, and it's
actually located in the eastern central portion of the state.
It's just west of Georgetown County, which is on the coast,
which is Sandwich there between Forrey County, Myrtle Beach, that
(04:23):
area and Charleston, so it's right there, and it's Williamsburg's
just west of Georgetown, and it's east of Clarendon County.
I've gotten an argument today with a friend of mine
about whether this is included in the pd region or not.
I include just about everything in the Pede region just
to make him mad and kishim off because he's from Camden,
(04:45):
and I say, oh, Camden's in the PDE and no
it's not. No, it's not, and it's really not. But
I like to include everything. So we're talking about Williamsburg
County today and Williamsburg County was founded in seventeen eighty five,
and the county's namesake was King William the third of England,
who was also known as William the Orange. I kind
(05:06):
of had to look into that. It was more of
a family family thing. Yeah, And I didn't really go
down that rabbit hole. We didn't have that much time
this week. Williamsburg, the land that it was eventually situated on,
was originally home to the Wheti, Winya, and Mingo Native
American tribes who all lived in the vicinity of the
(05:28):
Black River. Now interesting story and interesting facts about Williamsburg County.
This is super cool. During the American Revolution, Williamsburg County,
they had a lot of Scotch Irish Presbyterians that were
settled in the area, and when the Revolution broke out,
(05:49):
some of the elders that are like, you know, we
want to set this one out. You know, we don't.
We're not gonna be loyalists. I don't know if we're
going to be patriots. But some of the younger men
there Williamsburg, they're like, hell, yeah, we're gonna fight England.
We're gonna go down. We heard there's a siege in Charleston.
We're gonna go down to Charleston and defend you know,
(06:10):
what we think's right. So those guys went down there,
and unfortunately for them, the British did capture the city
of Charleston. Well down in Charleston, the British they did say, well, okay,
you came down here from Williamsburg County. What we're gonna
do is parole you. I'm putting that in quotation Mark
(06:31):
Air quotes. You can't see that, but they're gonna parole
you young men, and we're gonna send you back home. So
no harm, no foul. We went down there, we got
beat and we got in a little bit of trouble,
but they let us come home. Well, then the British
made a fatal mistake. They said, okay, what we're gonna
(06:53):
do now is this was orders from the colonial or
governor put into power by the British. He said, I'm
gonna make an order and a decree that all those
that have been paroled by the Crown previously, as a
condition of your parole, you must now take up arms
and fight for the king. So he changed the rules
(07:15):
on him and the people in Williamsburg County they said,
you know, that is a unilateral violation of the terms
of parole. So now we're gonna get involved. They formed
a very fierce militia, gave a middle finger to King
George the Third, and they chose and I don't know,
(07:38):
being from Oregon, how much you know about South Carolina history,
but they chose Francis Marion to be their leader, the
swamp Fox. If you've seen the movie The Patriot with
Mel Gibson, that's who his character was based off of.
So now it was on. They had resounding victory. After victory,
(08:03):
they hidden the swamps. They used guerrilla warfare, and Williamsburg
County was Actually, it gets me to this point. Williamsburg
County was the only area that was never ever occupied
by any British troops in South Carolina. Wow, so cool. Yes, yeah,
So that was our fun history fact about Williamsburg Today.
(08:26):
The population of Williamsburg County's thirty one thousand, and their
economies driven by manufacturing, retail, and public administration jobs and
some of the more famous residents from Williamsburg County. It's
very small in population, but they had some heavy hitters.
Mary Gordon Ellis, she was the first woman elected to
(08:48):
the South Carolina Legislature in nineteen thirty four. Also Joseph Goldstein.
He was born in Williamsburg and he was the nineteen
eighty five Nobel Prize winner in Phisiology and Medicine for
his studies with cholesterol and LDL receptors. It's something way
way out of my above my pay grade. Also from
(09:12):
Williamsburg County R and B singer Maxine Brown. And also
Louise Fulton. She was a professional bowler and she was
the first African American female to win a professional tournament.
And finally from Williamsburg County, Judge Clifton Newman. He's a
South Carolina circuit judge. He's presided over some pretty famous cases,
(09:37):
most recently including the Murdock trial. So friend of the show,
Judge Clifton Newman. So today we're going to go back,
but not too far in the past for this story,
and it's going to be from twenty nineteen, and we're
first going to talk about a Williamsburg County resident, sixty
(09:59):
four year old Irin Presley now Irene. She lived in Andrews,
South Carolina, which is right on the border with Williamsburg
in Georgetown County. So in the eastern portion of the county.
Miss Irene. She was a devoted wife to her husband
of thirty six years, Sonny. She was also the loving
(10:22):
mother of five four boys and one girl. By twenty nineteen,
she had seventeen grandchildren and one great grandchild, so she
had her hands full, but she was a go getter.
I mean she made sure all of them were good
and she took care of her priorities. Irene was super
(10:46):
involved in her community, especially her church, which was Saint
John amy Zion. She sang in the choir, she served
on the mission board, and she volunteered where she could
and was a mentor to young women in the community.
Irene was also the founder of Meals on Wheels in Andrews.
(11:10):
She loved fishing, singing, and reading her Bible and for work.
She was a mail carrier for the US Postal Service
since the nineties, so she'd been employed there for over
twenty years. Would be such a sweet job, Yes, a
federal job, federal benefit, that's walk every day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
It'd be great.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, well, she wrote around it was a little bit
of a rural area, but we still do have a
lot of walk walk and mailmen here. Yeah, we do.
In Oregon too. Okay, okay, we do write. I live
about one hundred yards from here, so yes, now, everyone
at the post office they loved Irene. They said that
(11:53):
she was considered their work mama. She would take care
of them. She certainly had experienced doing so with five children.
On Monday, September twenty third, twenty nineteen, there was a
call that came into the Williamsburg County Sheriff's office. It
(12:17):
was that a mail truck was seen in a ditch
off of Senate Road. Said it was off the road,
right off of where miss Irene's route would have been,
and it was at the entrance road to a hunt club.
Down the ditch. There's sandy soil down there. The topography
(12:38):
of that place, it's, like I said, sandy. But it
was more than likely a dirt road if it was
leading to a hunt club. Big shoulders off to the side,
fire brakes in that area, a lot of timbers, so
the ditches were pretty deep. Well. When authorities arrived, they
(12:59):
found the truck and almost immediately they spotted trouble. They
saw several bullet holes in the back of the truck.
So they approached kind of cautiously and when they opened
the truck, they saw just complete disarray packages mail. They
(13:22):
were strown about the cargo hold, and they're amongst them
lay the lifeless body of sixty four year old Irene Presley.
So we're gonna take a short break and we're gonna
get into exactly what befell Miss Presley and see if
we can make sense of what happened. Folks will be
(13:44):
right back after this quick word from our sponsors, Hi friends,
Matt Hires here. One of my favorite parts of bringing
(14:05):
you Carolina Crimes each week is spotlighting the many wonderful
towns and communities within our great state. And today I'm
proud to encourage you all to check out one of
my personal favorites. Rather on a road trip or a
weekend getaway, discover Mullins.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Once a vibrant depot town and the former tobacco capital
of South Carolina, Mullins is a hidden treasure in the
PD region. Explore our offerings by savoring a cup of
coffee at our delightful coffee shop, enjoying lunch at any
of our charming restaurants, visiting Old Brick Square, and shopping
at our quaint retail stores, which include an antique market
(14:44):
located in a repurposed tobacco warehouse. Your visit would not
be complete without a stop at the South Carolina Tobacco Museum,
situated in the historic train depot in downtown Mullens, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Here you can explore various exhibits such as my of
tobacco plants at each growth stage, a blacksmith shop, a
log tobacco barn filled with cured tobacco, a farmhouse kitchen
showcasing vintage equipment, and a photo gallery highlighting contemporary tobacco practices.
The Mullins Room honors our town's origins and its swift
(15:18):
growth driven by the railroad and the tobacco industry. Additionally,
in late June twenty twenty five, the Reverend Daniel Simmons
Museum will open its doors to the public. Within the
Tobacco Museum, Reverend Simmons was one of the victims of
the Mother Emmanuel nine tragedy, and he spent his childhood
in Mullins and worked in its tobacco warehouses. Thanks to
(15:40):
a generous loan from his daughter Rose, we will exhibit
many of his personal belongings, including his beloved Bible, the
documentary of his life, One Last Breath, will be continuously
streamed in the museum. Rather it's for a road trip
or a weekend getaway, Mullins is a perfect place to visit,
a place to call home. Visit Mullins, South Carolina, and
(16:16):
welcome back to Carolina Crimes episode two thirty four with
our special guests from the state of Oregon. Of course,
Julie Britton and Nicole are sisters. We're welcome welcoming them
into the Carolina Crimes family. Longtime listeners. We certainly appreciate it.
And they had all kinds of questions on break. They
(16:38):
bannered back and forth about hunt clubs. So I promise
they're not mute, and I promise they're really here in
the studio. I told them. I was like, hey, y'all
got to speak up. This is the kind of stuff
we need on the air at Nervous.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
And we don't have hunting clubs in Oregon, right, Like
we hunt a lot in Oregon, Yeah, a hunter, but
like we don't have hunting clubs.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, And they're they're prevalent a lot around the low country,
around Williamsburg County, Carleton County, Orangeburg, all over the place
and basically a group gets together with some land. It
could be leased, it could be family owned, and a
pool of guys get together pay their dues and they
(17:19):
go out there and they have organized hunts. And we
talked about the Yeah, and we talked about in the
lower part of the state. Williamsburg County included. I believe,
correct me if I'm wrong, listeners, but I believe that's
one of the counties where they use dogs to run deer,
just like Carleton County, Orangeburg and lower part of the state.
(17:42):
I think. So they're all animal people, Nicole Britton and
Julie So, yeah, and I have a.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Hound dog, yes too, but she's mixed with a guardian livestock,
so it's kind of counterproductive.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, they those are And your hound dog won't hunt,
you said no.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
She is petrified of loud noises, so she does not
like gunshots, just like fireworks. She doesn't like thunderstorms, so
she would make a horrible.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Hunting talk probably, So she's safe in the house.
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Overweight, and she probably would have a heart attack running
me too, exactly, me too.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So when we left off Miss Irene Pressley, she was
found in her mail truck right off a Senate road
there in Williamsburg County, pulled into a ditch and investigators
found her deceased. The entire truck had been rifled through.
(18:43):
They were like, whoa, you know, who in the world
could have done this, Why in the world would they
do this? And what's this all about? So you can
say it out loud.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tax return tracks is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Or social Security? That's good, yes, but Williamsburg County Sheriffs,
they got involved. And one thing that people that perpetrated
this didn't really have the forethought to think about, you're
(19:19):
messing with the mail. Now the FBI is involved, Now,
the US Postal Inspectors are involved. And I didn't even
know they had these things until I read about this,
but postal police, so they were called in on the scene,
and they have them in Charlotte. In Charlotte, North Carolina,
(19:41):
where where these folks were out of David McGinnis, he
was a spokesman for the US Postal Service, also sled
the State Law Enforcement Division. They were involved as well,
and they all descended on this scene. And if anything,
this story proves you don't mess with a federal worker,
(20:02):
and especially somebody that was this beloved in the community.
Because now the communities behind her, you got Washington, d C.
Behind her, you're gonna get found. So evidence it began
to be gathered, and it appeared by where the truck
was found that Miss Presley she would have been on
(20:22):
her normal route or not very far from She didn't
amend that very much, but not too far from where
the mail truck was found. Several two twenty three shell
casings were found, and David McGinnis that we mentioned with
the US Postal Service, he eventually asked the public, Hey,
(20:47):
we need any information leading to an arrest in this case. Also,
the federal government put up a reward that was offered
for any information leading to an arrest. And investigators they
started to collect this evidence, they started to peruse it,
and they said, Okay, what we're going to do is
(21:08):
start looking for They went kind of old school. You
hear about DNA all the time, but they said, we're
going to start looking for latent prints and we're going
to start combing the area because it looks like this
male has been rifled through, some envelopes opened, some packages opened,
and I would think this was kind of would kind
(21:31):
of be hard as much and as many hands as
mail goes through with.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Single print off of it after it's gone through.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and all the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
People all had fingerprints, right, yeah, all the postal workers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So fingerprints, Yes, that's a bigger that's a that's an
alien podcast, that's not right. So yes, if they don't
have fingerprints. And we had a case way back at
the start of this where investigators are trying to find
hair in a barbershop, and I can think this might
(22:10):
have been around the same thing. So also throughout the
community they started looking, they were able to find some clues.
They found some more shellcasings about three miles away, also
found a package that had been opened and tossed, and
so they started really narrowing in. Okay, we've got all
(22:34):
these fingerprints. What we're going to do is we're going
to send these prints to APHIS, which is the FBI's
fingerprint database, and what it is is previous offenders, mostly federal,
mostly violent criminals. I don't think for like speeding or
(22:56):
maybe a DUI or something like that, or checks. I
don't know if those and that's a that's a Danielle question.
She's on ad ministrative lead. I don't know if they're
including included in APHIS or not, like in a jail.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I don't always think yeah exactly, they don't always do
it either.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
In Britain, you're your husband's a police officer. Maybe he
can answer that for Uce. With all those it's possible. Yeah,
and Chad, we've heard all kinds of stories about you
doing the break. Yeah, you sound you sound awesome by
the way. So all these prints in this case, they
were sent to APHIS looking for previous offenders. Specifically, they
(23:42):
were looking for anyone in the Andrews area, in the
Williamsburg County area, anyone with a record. So this happened
on a Monday, and some results started to pop back
later that week and they found a head of interest.
(24:04):
There was a print belonging to a young man that
lived at eighty fifty six Thirdgood Marshall Highway in Andrews,
which was a home that Irene Presley delivered to. Not
only did he have a record, but he had a
pretty extensive record included, going back to the Williamsburg County
(24:27):
Public Index, he had been arrested for malicious injury to property,
for burglary, and for two larceny arrests. You're gonna say, well,
why is he out? It's because he is only twenty
two years old. His name was Trevor ray Kwan Seward.
(24:48):
And when we get back from this short break, we're
gonna learn more about mister Seward and really what went
on that day. Folks will be right back after this
quick word from our sponsors and welcome back to Carolina Crimes,
(25:19):
Episode to thirty four out of Williamsburg County. And we
just had to do a redo. We were talking, we
were enjoying ourselves, we were getting on with this episode,
and then I looked and said, hey, we're not recording,
so we were back. We had a lot of practice
at this. But as we mentioned before the break, police
(25:41):
they investigated the mail truck. They started looking for fingerprints
they were sending them to Aphus. They actually found a
package not too far away from the mail truck along
with shell casings, and the fingerprint on the box belonged
to h Trevor ray Kwan Seward, who was twenty two
(26:03):
years old. Now Trevor back at his home there on
Thirdgood Marshall Highway, he had surveillance cameras and y'all, y'all
asked and it seemed that it was commercial, something put
up by mister Seward or his parents or a landlord.
(26:24):
We don't really know his living situation with the property,
but those cameras were present, so the FBI sled they
wanted to look at those. They were able to subpoena
and get access from rather the company, the homeowner or
maybe by subpoena or mister Seward himself to take a
(26:44):
look at those. Well, that Monday, September twenty third, twenty nineteen,
the camera picked up actually Irene Presley. She was seen
putting a slip into mister Seward's box. Now this was
a package pickup slip and we had a good, good
(27:07):
talk about it that didn't get recorded. But what that
was was if mail carriers, if there's a package that's
too large, they couldn't fit it on the truck, or
they couldn't put it at a home, or problem with it,
or there was a problem with it's something just didn't
look right or smell right. They were like, Okay, we're
(27:27):
gonna give you a pickup slip. You're gonna have to
come down to the post office, sign for it and
take it from there. This is above mail carrier pay grade.
I'm taking this back to the post office. Here's your slip.
It belongs to you. Well, Seward came out and saw
(27:49):
this package slip instead of the package that he was expecting,
so he left his home and later on it was
found out that he had stopped Miss Presley on her
route to confront her about his package. And I would
assume it went something like, I'm sorry, baby, you're gonna
have to go to post office and get your package.
(28:11):
And he had to live with it, like, I am
not relinquishing this package to you. You are going to
have to go to the post office. Well, on the cameras,
Trevor Seward was seen returning home and within the hour
he was picked up by a friend who was identified
(28:31):
as thirty one year old Jerome Davis. Well Seward he
came out, obviously he was going to get a ride
from Jerome Davis, but he came out carrying his AR
fifteen with him. So Trevor Seward and Jerome Davis were
(28:52):
certainly wanted for questioning, to say the least. They were
found pretty quickly and Davison Seward they were separated. They
were asked what happened and Davis and Seward. Their stories
kind of matched up, at least Davis's did. He was
(29:14):
very cooperative and he said that he and Trevor Seward
they drove Miss Presley's route trying to catch up to
her and to overtake her. When they finally did that,
they passed her and they're like, okay, well she's probably
going this way on Senate Road. So Davis dropped off
(29:36):
Seward on Senate Road with his AR fifteen, and Seward
laid in wait with the gun. When missus Presley drove by,
Trevor Seward popped out, shot twenty times into the rear
of the mail vehicle. Yes, shoot and obviously incapacitating miss Presley.
(30:03):
I'm not sure if she died immediately from her wounds,
but she was hit by several rounds.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Let's say she did that.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
She did not suffer I hope. So Uh then admitted, well,
this is what happened, Davis. Yes. So Seward then jumped
in and drove the mail truck three miles to the
Hunt Club Access Road, where Jerome Davis returned to pick
(30:30):
him up with Yes. So why did they do this?
Why is this so important? Why was this mail or
this package worth killing over.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
Was it from Oregon?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Close? Because they had and you're absolutely right. Seward and
Davis were expecting a shipment of two pounds of marijuana
to be delivered from the well. It was rather and
I've seen it in both two different articles, from California
or Colorado. One of the two. It's one article said Colorado.
(31:09):
It's from California, one said Colorado. So Irene Pressley, something
tipped her off in that vehicle in the mail truck.
She thought the package was suspicious, so she left that
pickup slip instead of delivering it. The amount of the
drugs was about twenty six hundred dollars street value. I
(31:32):
don't kill no nothing worth killing over, but twenty six
hundred dollars so. On Sunday, September twenty ninth, twenty nineteen,
twenty year old Trevor Rakwan Seward was arrested and charged
with the following possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,
(31:56):
conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, and the
biggie murder of a federal employee in the course of
her duties, Hecky Jerome Davis. When they caught up to
him he was charged with murder, robbery, and conspiracy to
(32:19):
possess marijuana with intent to distribute. So these trials were
not held in South Carolina Circuit court. These were federal
federal court, federal court. So this federal trial, it was
presided over by US District Judge Donald Coggins, and it
(32:42):
commenced in January of twenty twenty three. Oh wow, that
was like Jerome Davis. He pled guilty to robbery, conspiracy
to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, and once the
store where he panned out, his murder charge was dropped.
(33:03):
So if you think about it, that's really.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
He didn't know he was going to want to do
something bad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
He did, I think you can't. I think he and
he dropped him off, picked him up a couple of miles,
And I think for pleading guilty he probably got a
lesser He probably got a lesser sentence, and probably for
telling the story and cooperating with the police.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I think it was a long ways.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
So the murder charge was dropped, but he received a
sentence of twenty five years twenty for the robbery, five
for the conspiracy to possess marijuana with an intent to
distribute and they were to be served consecutively. And I
(33:50):
found this out. It's interesting that there is no parole
in the federal system. So it's twenty five years, okay.
So next on the stand was Trevor Riekwan Seward. He
was found guilty of all the charges that he was
(34:11):
charged with, and again those were possession of a firearm
by convicted felon conspiracy, possessed marijuana with intend to distribute,
and the murder of a federal employee in the course
of her duties. Seward was sentenced to life plus twenty
years to be served consecutively for the robbery. For the robbery, yes,
(34:34):
the robbery got him another twenty after he's already dead.
And the loss of Miss Irene Presley, she left a
legacy of love and a hole in the hearts of
her family, her church, family, and her community and they
continue to remember her.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
What a cool legacy though with the.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Mills on wheels, Yes, and it sounded like and I
hate it even more. I mean, it's it's despicable either way.
It's a tragedy. But she was so close to retirement
and she was in good health. You see these pictures
of her awesome lady. And you know, she had all
(35:18):
these grandkids. She was starting to have some great grandkids.
She was able to finally kind of start enjoying her
life spending time with them fishing. She loved to do
that in serving her community.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I always thought that when a package was held air quote,
that that was done at the post office. I didn't
know that it was the postal workers. I didn't know
how to decide if they could deliver a packager.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I didn't know that they had that authority either. Or
maybe somebody from the post office was like, here's this package.
I don't know it should be delivered. Here's some package,
slip you you make the call. I'm not I'm not
sure how that works. My step mom was a I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I was always mailing stuff that if it was leaking,
they threw it away. They didn't call you to come
get it, they just tossed it.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I was like, oh, okay, don't put anything liquid in there.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Well, ask you if you're shipping liquids when you give
them a box.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Or corrosives or batteries or anything like that. But they
have two pounds of marijuana in this box. They don't
ask you that they don't orgon. They don't well, yeah,
or in California or wherever they were shipping it from. Yeah,
they probably certainly wouldn't bat any in some of the
all those states. Yeah, Yeah, they wouldn't bat deny to
being shipped. So that's a that's another thing to think about,
(36:42):
taking a consideration.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
That's so sad. It is, it is, and she was.
She was well remembered, and a lot of people they were.
They had a seventy man task force working on this
for a week.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
That's why I got quickly.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, they're going to bust that whoever did this, And
I'm glad they did. I'm glad they did. But our
hearts go out of her family, sympathy for the community,
her church family. She was well remembered. Miss Irene Presley. Well,
I want to thank you all for listening this week.
I want to thank our special guests Julie Nicole Britton.
(37:21):
Thank you for visiting us from Oregon. Thank you for
listening way out there. Now we get the statistics of
where people listen from, and we see it from Oregon
all the time. It has a little spike and all
over the world, and we appreciate all of you reach
out to us. Of course, like we said on our
(37:41):
social media on Facebook at Carolina Crimes Podcast, we'll put
some pictures up. You can put some faces with some
names with this case. Also over on Twitter at sc
Crimes pod. In addition to that, if you're looking to
support the show, and you can do it for free,
if you're listening on Apple iTunes or Apple podcast or Spotify,
(38:03):
give us a five star review. Please mash that purple
subscribe button and tell us what you like about the show,
what you're having for dinner, are your pets' names, or
what color shirt you're wearing today. It just helps their algorithm.
I don't know. Also, if you're looking to support the
show and get some cool back to school clothes rather
you're going to school or you're sixty five years old,
(38:25):
check out Carolina Crimestore dot com. We would certainly appreciate that.
But ladies, thank you so much for being here. We hope,
we hope this is a good experience. Daniel will be
back next week, I promise, and until then, thank you
for listening to Carolina Crimes.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Thank you
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