Murder At Scary Bridge

Modoc, South Carolina, is a community of 218 people in McCormick County, in the western corner of the state on the Georgia border, about half an hour from Augusta. The case that made its name, though, began across that border in Martinez, Georgia, and ended on an unlit bridge over Stevens Creek.

Melanie K. Richie was fifteen in the summer of 1994, a high-school sophomore who would have turned sixteen on 23 July. Her family lived in Martinez, an Augusta suburb, and by every account she was a good student, friendly, a churchgoer and an ordinary teenager. On the night of 11 July 1994 she climbed out of her bedroom window to meet friends and cut her foot badly on metal or glass on the way. Her father said she had been babysitting at a neighbour's house and was supposed to be home by eight o'clock, but she never came home. The next morning her parents found her room empty. They called everyone they knew and searched, and on the night of 13 July her mother, Debbie, took an emergency call that came through the operator from someone said to be Melanie; nobody spoke on the line.

Three young men were at the centre of what happened. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now The three of them made a pipe bomb from copper tubing and gunpowder taken from firecrackers, set it off near a tree in Kirchner's backyard, then shoplifted pipe material from a hardware store and shotgun shells from a Walmart and built three galvanised steel bombs. One of those made a crater four inches deep and a foot wide and put shrapnel into the side of the house and a wooden fence.

Kirchner had a party at the house that evening. details of the account remain covered until revealed They offered to take her back to the party and bandage it. She got there shortly before 1.30 a.m. They cleaned and dressed the cut and she joined the party.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed At about 3.30 a.m. she said she needed to go home. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He drove around, crossed into South Carolina with the music turned up and the car doing about ninety miles an hour. Melanie's foot knocked the gearstick into neutral. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

Scary Bridge was a 480-foot bridge over Stevens Creek, on the boundary between Edgefield and McCormick counties. It had no lights, was built in the 1920s, carried about 650 cars a day and was classed as functionally obsolete. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

They drove about a hundred feet past the bridge, carried her into the woods and up an embankment and put her on the ground. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The two ran and the bomb exploded. this part of the story is covered for now They drove back to Kirchner's house and agreed to say she had been gone when they woke up.

On 26 August 1994, six and a half weeks after she disappeared, Melanie's body was found beside the road between the road and the woods. details of the account remain covered until revealed The autopsy gave the cause of death as blunt trauma to the head caused by a bomb, which meant she had been alive when it went off. Skull fragments were found seven feet three inches from the rest of her body. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it David Williams Jr. testified that at about 4.45 a.m. he had seen a white Honda parked on the bridge, two white men beside it and clothes and high-top tennis shoes lying on the bridge. The state entered Melanie's necklace, which her mother handed to the court, and photographs of her wearing it. Billy Joe Abercrombie, an explosives expert, said the bombs had the destructive power of a fragmentation grenade and would cause severe damage to a skull, and a medical examiner said the base of the skull was missing and only an explosive device could have done it. An FBI agent matched metal fragments from the scene to fragments in Kirchner's backyard.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed South Carolina does not accept duress as a defence to murder. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He said he had not been thinking as rationally as the prosecutor. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Melanie's father, Steve Richie, told the court that she had been a student, a member of their church, a sister and, first of all, his daughter, and that the only remorse anyone had shown was remorse at being caught. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The judge said he knew of nothing more malicious than sticking a pipe bomb in a person's mouth, dead or alive. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Melanie Richie, who died eleven days short of her sixteenth birthday, was buried at Westover Memorial Park in Augusta.