Two life sentences for TC man in Horry murders

Odom Bryan Bryant

    Two life sentences were ordered for a Tabor City man convicted in an Horry County double-murder case Thursday, the 15th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said.
    Odom Bryan Bryant, 24, was found guilty of two counts of murder and burglary in the first degree in the Aug. 19, 2012 killings of Amos Hatfield, 66, and his son Thomas Howard Hatfield, 40, in their Red Bluff Road home south of Loris.
    Testimony in the trial began Tuesday, with jurors selected early on the second day of trial.
    Sandy Lee Locklear, 42 and also from Tabor City, was convicted of the crimes following a two-week trial last June and sentenced to two concurrent life sentences.
    Nehemiah James Evans, 29, of Nichols, is also charged with those crimes and is awaiting trial, held with Bryant without bond at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center near Conway.
    Locklear, who was married to the elder Hatfield, was also initially charged with filing a false police report.
    She called 911 about 4:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning, and told responding police that she had been sexually assaulted during a home invasion that ended with the murders of her husband and his son, a spokesman for the Horry County Police Department said at the time.
    Prosecutors this week said Bryant conspired with Locklear and Evans to kill the Hatfield men execution style, guns to the back of their heads through a pillow, lied to cover up the crime, and that those lies could not stand the scrutiny of police investigators.