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Another teen found dead Officials think victim was killed Friday by man shot to death Saturday BY MATT BRUCE matthew@theitem.com
BRACEY
BISHOPVILLE — Lee County investigators continued to unravel the sordid saga of two shooting deaths there in the past five days after find-
New ‘great journey’ for Lee, Sumter is official
ing the body of a missing Lee Central High School senior Tuesday. Deputies from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office found 17-year-old Shakez Bracey about 2 p.m. Tuesday in a wooded area about a mile off
English Lane in Bishopville. Bracey had been missing since Friday, and his disappearance had generated a wave of community buzz as deputies continued to search for him. That search ended in trage-
dy as Bracey was discovered dead Tuesday with a gunshot wound to the head. His body was found about a half mile away from Dontrell Fortune’s home.
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The future faces of forensics
Counties kick off their economic development alliance with meeting BY JOE KEPLER joe@theitem.com A new economic development alliance between Lee and Sumter counties was officially started Tuesday, with members of the Sumter Economic Development Board bringing together key members of both counties for a meeting in Bishopville. The event marks the beginning of “TheLINK,” a joint effort between business and political leadership from the two counties to bring economic development SCHWEDLER to the region. Members of county councils for Lee and READ MORE Sumter were in attendance, as were city counFor more cils from Bishinformation on the alliance, opville and visit TheLinkSC. Sumter. They com. were joined by town representatives from Lynchburg, Pinewood and Mayesville and education representatives from USC Sumter, Central Carolina Technical College and the school systems from each county. Private-sector members from industries ranging from advertising, real estate, banking, finance, manufacturing, health care and construction also were at the meeting. TheLINK will have a sevenmember board, with three representatives from Lee County and four from Sumter, with the majority rotating between counties every year. For Jay Schwedler, president and CEO of the Sumter Economic Development, this first meeting was an important way to get a number of different voices and backgrounds together working toward a common cause. “The most important take away from today is that this was an opportunity for everybody to get on the same page,” Schwedler said. “The purpose of today was to allow folks who wouldn’t normally cross pollinate in their daily lives to have
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Jasmine Richburg adds a solution to a test tube to test for marijuana in the Morris College Forensic Center on Tuesday. The center has labs for fingerprint, arson, DNA and ballistics analysis. The criminal justice program at the college, which was started in the early 1990s, is the second-largest degree program with 90 declared majors this academic year.
Hands-on approach, local partnerships give college’s students close look at field BY RAYTEVIA EVANS ray@theitem.com
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hat you see in a forensics lab on television’s CSI and NCIS every week might be flashy enough to keep you coming back. But if you have a serious interest in forensics and the criminal justice system, Morris College’s Forensic Center is probably the closest you’ll get to high-technology forensics equipment that may be exaggerated for television but is just as interesting in its own right. According to Dr. Jacob Butler, chairman of the Division of Social Sciences for the college, many colleges and universities offer a forensics program, but those degree programs are sometimes included under the umbrella of the natural sciences departments. Morris College, however, has a standalone facility for criminal forensics at the undergraduate level, which allows its students a close look into the forensics world using updated equipment along with textbooks to round out its curriculum. The Forensic Center houses classrooms that can comfortably accommodate 40 students but normally only have about 15 to 25 students per class and also includes multiple labs for fingerprint, arson, DNA and ballistics analysis.
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“You’re not going to find a freestanding building with separate labs for individual criminal forensic studies,” Butler said. Morris started the criminal justice program in the early 1990s, and it is the second-largest degree program on campus with 90 declared majors this academic year. The Forensic Center was constructed in 2010 and was built with a combination of a Bureau of Justice grant and Morris College resources. Butler, who has been with Morris College for
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Tiffany Swinton looks through a microscope at Morris College on Tuesday during class in the forensics lab.
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almost 15 years, said that through the years, educators at the college saw that the criminal justice field was demanding more and more representatives and employees with degrees, and they wanted Morris to be one of the colleges that prepared students to meet those demands. “We saw that criminal justice continued to grow and change over time,” Butler said. “Technology was changing, and it demanded an increase in the amount of employees who were college educated and trained in forensics.” Director of the Forensic Center Carlotta C. Stackhouse, who trained at the FBI Academy and has been with Morris since 2011, said TV might be what initiates some students’ interest in criminal justice, but they also have a genuine interest in becoming a part of law enforcement. “I think television has something to do with it, but the science behind it all is unmistakable, and some people already have an interest in law enforcement, or they are just interested in seeking the truth,” said Stackhouse, who retired as a major after 25 years with State Law Enforcement Division. With Stackhouse and other faculty’s hands-on approach to studying criminal justice and forensics, students at Morris College quickly learn that the embellished images they see on TV every day are sensationalized. However, with Stackhouse’s crime scene scenarios tied in with curriculum, they begin to learn to collect and analyze
SEE FORENSICS, PAGE A8
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