IN SPORTS: Jets, Manning look to even playoff series
B1
PANORAMA
Program nurtures expectant moms CenteringPregnancy program a community of ‘sisters’ C1
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015
75 CENTS
Shaw pilot, Cessna crash mid-air 2 killed when F-16, small plane crash; airman safe BY SUSANNE M. SCHAFER The Associated Press MONCKS CORNER — An F-16 fighter jet smashed into a small plane Tuesday over South Carolina, killing two people and raining down plane parts and debris over a wide swath of marshes and rice fields. The two people aboard the smaller Cessna were killed, and the plane was completely destroyed, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said. The pilot of the F-16 ejected and “is apparently uninjured,” he said. A news release from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter said the pilot, Maj. Aaron Johnson from the 55th Fighter Squadron, was taken to Joint Base Charleston’s medical clinic for observation. The fighter jet crash-landed into woods around the privately owned Lewisfield Plantation, an estate dating PHOTO PROVIDED to 1750. Wreckage of the mid-air collision between a Shaw Air Force Base F-16 fighter jet and a private Cessna passenger plane over Berkeley County “We heard the plane crash. And then we took off on Tuesday is seen. The Cessna was completely destroyed in the crash, killing both people on board, while the pilot of the F-16, Maj. Aaron from where I was at, I guess Johnson of the 55th Fighter Squadron, ejected to safety and was being evaluated at a Charleston-area medical facility. I was about a half-mile from it, when we saw a cloud of smoke,” said Leo Ramsey, who’s worked at the plantation for about 30 years. He and two other co-work- FROM THE CHARLESTON POST AND COURIER ONLINE Nov. 30, 2014 — Capt. William ers went out to the flaming Dubois of the 77th Fighter Squadron spot where the jet had Former Sumter Mayor Steve Creech, a former was killed during a non-combat crash-landed into some of A Sumter-based F-16 fighter jet on a training chairman of Sumter’s Military Affairs Commission, the wooded acreage around mission collided with a small airplane Tuesflight mission in the Middle East. The reacts to the crash. See www.theitem.com. the plantation, Ramsey said. day morning in the sky over a Berkeley Councause of the crash is still under They found burning metal, ty rice plantation, killing two people on the investigation. splintered trees and a crater private aircraft and sheering off metal parts fell near Lewisfield Plantation along the CooApril 3, 2013 — Capt. James Steel, where the empty jet per River about 25 miles north of Charleston. that scattered over an 8-mile swath near a member of the 77th Fighter crashed, he said. But crews were still looking for the victims’ Moncks Corner. Squadron, was killed when his F-16 The NTSB is investigating Air Force Maj. Aaron Johnson, a career pilot bodies on land and in the water, the county the cause. coroner said. They were not named. from Shaw Air Force Base, survived after safecrashed while he was making a Debris was scattered The Cessna left minutes earlier from the ly ejecting from the damaged F-16C Fighting descent into Bagram Air Field near across a wide swath of the Berkeley County Airport, which is about three Kabul, Afghanistan. Falcon and parachuting into a field miles to sparsely populated area miles to the northwest, the coroner said. Their the south of the collision site. about 20 miles northwest of plane had a cruising speed of 125 mph. The jet Oct. 15, 2009 — Capt. Nicholas Paramedics said he was alert and walking. Charleston, though there Both occupants of the Cessna 150C were pre- was likely traveling twice as fast, officials said. “Nick” Giglio of the 20th Fighter Wing sumed to be dead. A wallet was found amid the wreckage that SEE F-16, PAGE A6 SEE DETAILS, PAGE A3 SEE CRASHES, PAGE A6
Crash details emerge from local residents HISTORY OF
LOCAL CRASHES
General Assembly overrides vetoes of local project funding
EPPS COLD CASE
Inmates’ conflicting testimonies lead to accessory conviction
EPPS
BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
BY RICK CARPENTER rick@theitem.com
“It was a good day for Sumter,” said state Rep. David Weeks, D-Sumter on Tuesday after the General Assembly finished considering Gov. Nikki Haley’s line item vetoes of the 2015-16 Appropriation Act. Haley had vetoed $400,000 for the Sumter Green Space Initiative and $250,000 for the Manning Avenue/Wilder School Area Green Space initiative, but both chambers of the General Assembly voted
SEE VETOES, PAGE A3
VISIT US ONLINE AT
the
.com
BROWN
KELLEY
In the first two installments of this series, we reported how Darrell Epps was killed on April 9, 2011, and how testimony from a prison inmate led to murder charges filed against Quinton Brown and London Kelley. You can read those two installments on The Sumter Item website, www.theitem.
DEATHS, B6 Tammy R. Fleming Adrian J. Eaglin Essie Mae Coard Bernard Gillis
Leon C. McCoy Thomas Boulware Frances B. Washington Julia Horton
com. Today’s edition runs in the print and online versions for paid subscribers. The previous installments can be read a day after they were published. After testimony from inmate Edward Brown on New Year’s Eve 2014, Sumter County Sheriff ’s Office arrested and charged Quinton Brown (no relation to Edward Brown) and London
Kelley with the murder of Darrell Epps. Edward Brown had investigator Jennifer Thomas write a statement that he initialed stating Kelley had told him she had lured Epps to her home by meeting him at Club Miami and asking him to follow her to her mobile home to make love. Once there, she told him
SEE EPPS, PAGE A5
WEATHER, A8
INSIDE
HOT AND HUMID
3 SECTIONS, 24 PAGES VOL. 120, NO. 222
Partly sunny today and very warm; 40 percent chance of thunderstorms early tonight. HIGH 95, LOW 74
Food C8 Classifieds B7 Comics C6
Lotteries A8 Opinion A7 Television C7