CONWAY, S.C. — The witness to a deadly and violent crime in a South Carolina parking lot nearly became the next victim years ago. But his ability to fight off an attack in a restaurant kitchen allowed him to see the day that 58-year-old Stephen Denis O'Hara was convicted and sentenced.
The Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor's Office said that on Nov. 23, 2020, O'Hara shot 30-year-old Paul Anthony Mishoe to death in the parking lot of C.W. Wings in Conway before tracking down the lone witness to his deed who hid away in the restaurant kitchen.
O'Hara found the witness, Ryan Woodard, but prosecutors said the man who could have been the next target wrestled the gun away from his attacker. O'Hara was soon arrested by officers from Conway and Horry counties.
The violence that night, described as a "senseless murder" by senior assistant solicitor Mary-Ellen Walter with the 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office, took Mishoe's life and took him away from his girlfriend and three children.
For that crime, a jury convicted O'Hara of murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime and pointing or presenting a firearm, for which he will spend at least 45 of the next 50 years behind bars.
Solicitor Walter thanked all involved in the case, particularly Woodard, who testified about the events that night.
"Hopefully, this brings some measure of comfort to the victims and their families and allows them to, at long last, begin the healing process," Walter said.
