WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden spared the lives of three people with ties to South Carolina when he announced Dec. 23 he would convert nearly every federal death row sentence to life in prison. Only three people, including Dylann Roof, the man convicted of the racially-motivated Emanuel AME shooting that killed 9 in 2015, remain on death row.
Co-defendents Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks were sentenced to death in 2004 for the kidnapping and death of a woman following an escape from prison. They will now serve life in prison, as will Brandon Council, who was sentenced to death in 2019 for killing two bank employees during a robbery, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The outgoing president’s move comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump is an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment.
“When President Biden came into office, his Administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions, and his actions today will prevent the next Administration from carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice,” the White House said in a Dec. 23 statement.
Basham and Fulks were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Alice Donovan, a 44-year-old Horry County woman, according to previous Post and Courier reporting. Donovan was kidnapped from what is believed to be a Walmart parking lot in December 2002, but her remains were not discovered until 2009.
This is a family handout photo from New Hampshire of Alice Donovan taken in the mid 1990’s. Donovan was abducted from a Conway Wal-Mart parking lot in 2002 by Chadrick Fulks and Branden Bashem, who were convicted of her kidnapping and murder. Her remains were found in 2009. (AP Photo/Family Handout)
Both men had escaped from a county jail in Western Kentucky shortly before Donovan was abducted. They went on a 17-day crime spree through Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. They also received life sentences for killing 19-year-old Samantha Burns, a West Virginia college student who went missing in 2002.
Council is a North Carolinian who killed manager Katie Skeen and teller Donna Major in August 2017 during a robbery at Conway’s CresCom Bank branch. He stole $15,000 and a victim’s SUV before being arrested in a North Carolina hotel days later.
At the time, it was one of the deadliest American bank heists in recent years, according to previous Post and Courier reporting.
Blondelle Gadsden, Myra Thompson’s sister, speaks at the Emanuel Nine Day of Observance on Monday at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
Roof will remain on death row after he in 2017 became the first person in the U.S. to be sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. He opened fire during the closing prayer of a Bible study at the historic AME church on Calhoun Street in June 2015.
Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Susie Jackson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Ethel Lance, Myra Thompson, Cynthia Graham Hurd and Daniel Simmons Sr. died. Five others survived.
The worshippers who died in the Emanuel AME Church shooting are Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons Sr., Sharonda Coleman-Singleton and Myra Thompson.
On the ninth year-mark of the shooting, the congregation decided to remember the tragedy and to stay resilient.
“We need to make sure that everyone knows we are not completely healed,” said Blondelle Gadsden, one of Myra Thompson’s sisters and the head of the Emanuel Nine Commemoration Committee. “We need support and encouragement, and having people here today lets us know that we’re not alone.”
