Orangeburg, SC (WLTX) - Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell has released a mental profile of the people responsible for killing four people and injuring a little boy in Holly Hill over the summer.
The sheriff said a special Holly Hill Four task force that includes the FBI, the U.S. Marshal's Service, SLED, and his officers from his agency has been formed and created the profile.
"We have created a task force not because we're not getting anywhere, we created a task force because this investigation is one of the investigations that, in my 20-something years of law enforcement, I see every day picking up momentum," said Sheriff Ravenell.
Ravenell updated the investigation Wednesday morning, saying officers were finding and pursing new leads and vowing, "we must and we will get justice."
People with tips should call a new hotline number that has been set up: 1-888-825-7172.
"We're going to solve this case," said Ravenell. "We want people that may know something about it to come forward now and not be charged later on with accessory because it's a possibility."
Back on July 15, four people were found dead inside a home on Old State Road in Holly Hill: 17-year-old Shemekia Sanders,14-year-old Tamara Perry, 28-year-old Krystal Hutto and 50-year-old Jerome Butler. An eight-year-old boy was also shot, and was hospitalized for his injuries.
"These victims did not deserve to die this way," Ravenell says. "We will not tolerate in Orangeburg County for these offenders to walk among us as citizens of this county."
Ravenell said they're looking for two or more suspects in the case, and they believe one of them is the ringleader, while the others are followers. The sheriff said he believes the ringleader went to the home with the intent to kill the victims, but the others may not have know that was the purpose of the crime.
"This was a planned event," Ravenell said. "This was not a random act of violence."
The sheriff believes the men have connections to the town of Vance, because that's where they dumped and set on fire a car was stolen at the crime scene. Ravenell says the suspects likely feel comfortable there.
Based on the profile that's been created by investigators, the ringleader is believed to be a man who lacks empathy, and may turn against the other suspects if he feels they're going to cooperate with police, The sheriff said those other suspects--and anyone who may have helped them after the crime--need to come forward now, before they face danger.
"Time is running out," Ravenel said.
Ravenell also said there has been no update on Christopher Dean Wright, 36, the father of three of the victims: Perry, Sanders, and the unidentified 8-year-old boy. Wright was also the finance of Hutto.
The sheriff said the investigation revealed that the home was targeting by the killers because Wright sold drugs there. Ravenell said Wright was aware that he may be in some sort of danger with criminals in the community, and had stopped living in the home prior to the killings, but didn't choose to find a safe place for his kids to live.
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Over the summer, Ravenell said that while Wright may not have been the killer, he considered him responsible for their deaths. Ravenell said Wright continues to refuse to help investigators.
