Area News

By DEUCE NIVEN     A guilty verdict in the Christmas eve 2012 killing of his girlfriend netted a Tabor City man at least seven years in prison on Thursday.     Beamon Fowler, 61, of Sandy Plains Church Road near Tabor City, was on trial for first-degree murder in the death of Rebecca Ann Buffkin, 46,…

By DEUCE NIVEN     An assault warrant was served on a veteran Tabor City Elementary School employee late Wednesday, in a computer lab incident that took place a day earlier.     Melisa Blackwell, 51, of New Life Church Road, Tabor City, surrendered at the Columbus County Detention Center in Whiteville just before midnight Wednesday, and…

By DEUCE NIVEN     A “large metal object” that fell from a trailer struck and killed a Green Sea area man not far from his home Monday afternoon, the South Carolina Highway Patrol reports.     Rudy Shelley, 37, died on the scene of the 1:15 incident on Hwy 45, near Hwy 19, the Horry County…

Story & Photo By DEUCE NIVEN     Prison reform in South America is beginning in the country of Panama, with a little help from one of North Carolina’s newest correctional facilities in Tabor City.     Jorge Luis Alemån, Director General of the soon to be opened 5,500 bed La Gran Joya prison in Panama City;…

    A wreath laying marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Shane Miller, a Tabor City Police Department officer who lost his life in an auto crash during his first day on the job.     Sheriff Lewis Hatcher and Sgt. John Lewis of the North Carolina Highway Patrol laid the wreath as Miller’s parents,…

By DEUCE NIVEN     A church daycare worker in the Mollie Community has been fired and arrested after a five-month-old child was bitten Thursday, Columbus County Sheriff’s Office reports show.     Joni Smith McMillan, 36, of the 6000 block of Joe Brown Hwy, Chadbourn, was arrested by Det. Rene Trevino Monday morning, charged with felony…

By DEUCE NIVEN     An off-duty Columbus County Sheriff’s Deputy and his EMT girlfriend were each charged with assault in a Sunday confrontation at their Lester Watts Road home, department reports show.     Deputy James Floyd Norris, 28, was placed on leave without pay Monday night, Sheriff Lewis Hatcher said. An internal investigation will be…

By DEUCE NIVEN & JOYCE GRAHAM     Al Leonard could be making a move across the border this summer as one of three finalists for the long-vacant post of Loris City Administrator.     Tabor City’s town manager for nearly three decades, Leonard is joined by Bladenboro’s town administrator and an engineer from Conway on the…

By DEUCE NIVEN     Sheriff Lewis L. Hatcher, appointed to the post in January and facing voters for the first time, easily bested four other men who wanted to be Columbus County’s top law enforcement officer in Tuesday’s Democratic Primary.      With all precincts reporting, Hatcher had 79.4 percent of the vote, 6,239 ballots cast…

By DEUCE NIVEN     Arrests in the armed robbery of a McDonald’s restaurant here early this week are linked to an Horry County, murder, law enforcement officers on both side of the state line say.     Two of the four people charged in the Tabor City case early Friday are also charged in warrants obtained…