Camp Swamp Road Ep. 1: Mess Around, Find Out

Speaker 1 A word of warning.

Speaker 2 This series contains descriptions of violence and strong language, including unbleeped curse words. Please be advised.

Speaker 1 901, in case of emergency.

Speaker 1 Hey, I've got a guy pointing a gun at me driving. We're armed as well.
He keeps throwing the gun in our faces,

Speaker 1 acting like he's about to shoot us. If he keeps this up, I'm going to shoot him.

Speaker 1 Where are you at? I'm on highway nine.

Speaker 1 He's trying to run from me now.

Speaker 2 It was around 5.50 p.m. on a Saturday, September 9th, 2023.

Speaker 2 A man calls 911 about a reckless driver. A reckless driver with a gun.

Speaker 1 This dude shoots at me. We're going to put him down.

Speaker 1 I mean, this dude's insane.

Speaker 2 As he heads down the highway, the man describes what he sees. He tells the dispatcher that he's taking pictures out the window.

Speaker 2 The man making this call is Weldon Boyd. He's 32 years old and owns a popular restaurant nearby.

Speaker 2 That day, Boyd was driving with his friend Bradley Williams. The two were heading up to Boyd's farm to drop off a fan and some lawn furniture.

Speaker 2 Boyd wanted his mother to be able to sit outside in the late summer heat.

Speaker 1 Did it start with a road radio so he just pulled up next to you? I didn't do either. I was talking to my friend.
We're trailer and couches. And this dude just, my buddy's like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 And he's got a gun aimed at us next to us.

Speaker 2 Boyd seems convinced that this man is going to hurt somebody. He and Williams have been following the guy with the gun for several miles.

Speaker 1 I need a trooper fast. Y'all, he may shoot at the cop too, man.

Speaker 1 Tell the cops we're in a white Ram pickup truck and we are armed. I'm military, so it ain't us.
Don't shoot us, but this dude's fucking nuts.

Speaker 2 The guy with the gun suddenly turns off the highway. Boyd says he's going to keep after him.

Speaker 1 All right, so he's turning on to Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 1 What road?

Speaker 1 Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 2 I've been to Camp Swamp Road many times over the course of the last year. It's a two-lane country road surrounded by farmland.

Speaker 2 There wouldn't be any reason for me to be there except for what happened next.

Speaker 1 Hey, stopping. He's stopping.
Hey, we're about to have a fucking shootout, dude. This dude's got a gun.
He's got a fucking gun.

Speaker 1 Do you have an address where you stop at?

Speaker 1 Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

Speaker 1 Are you guys shooting?

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 2 In those few seconds, dozens of bullets were fired on Camp Swamp Road, and a man was killed.

Speaker 2 This shooting took place in South Carolina, one of 28 states with stand-your-ground laws.

Speaker 2 These laws allow someone to kill a person if they are in fear for their life. And stand-your-ground would be applied in this case.

Speaker 2 That essentially meant that it wasn't fully investigated like a murder. because this killing wasn't considered a crime.

Speaker 2 In stand-your-ground cases, the roles of victim and perpetrator can be flipped. The killer is considered the victim, making the dead person the perpetrator.

Speaker 2 In many cases, the only one who can account for what happened is the person who survives. In America, there are hundreds of standard ground killings every year, and most of them fly under the radar.

Speaker 2 They almost never make it to trial.

Speaker 2 But this case on Camp Swamp Road is different. It could have been quickly dealt with as a standard ground killing, case closed, but it wasn't.
Because of a few very important factors:

Speaker 2 one man's decision to record all of his phone calls, a police cover-up, and one sister's determination to take on the investigation herself, learning everything she could about her brother's death.

Speaker 2 I'm Valerie Borline, and this is Camp Swamp Road,

Speaker 2 a series from the journal.

Speaker 2 Coming up, episode one. Mess around, find out.

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Speaker 6 911 was addressed, emergency.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 something doesn't look right over on Camp Swamp Road off of Highway 9. Morris.

Speaker 2 Soon after the shooting, other 911 calls come in.

Speaker 2 I didn't pull off their

Speaker 2 own camp. their own swamp.

Speaker 6 Oh my god, I'm so joy. We're at the corner of Highway 9 and Camp Swamp.
The gunshots,

Speaker 6 Road Rage,

Speaker 6 white pickup trucks, two white men. I am at the corner of

Speaker 6 Camp Swamp Road, and somebody just unloaded, shot through his windshield, and stopped this guy.

Speaker 6 Okay, can you give us the best known location so far?

Speaker 7 The best known location so far. I've gotten a couple of things in here saying that both vehicles are on Camp Swamp Road.
I'm not sure how far.

Speaker 2 What you're about to hear is based on police records, 911 calls, and hours of body cam and dash cam recordings.

Speaker 2 The first officer to arrive is Carrie Higgs.

Speaker 9 Camp Swamp and 9. I'm here.

Speaker 7 All units can't three this town. Go to the alternate.
All units can't three go to the alternate.

Speaker 2 Camp Swamp Road is in Horry County, South Carolina. The late summer air is heavy when Higgs rolls up.
Higgs sees two trucks. One is black.
The driver's door is flung open.

Speaker 2 The other truck is white with a trailer attached. Next to the white truck are two white men.
Both have beards. Both are wearing ball caps.
The bigger guy is Bradley Williams.

Speaker 2 The smaller guy is Weldon Boyd. Boyd rushes towards the officer, waving his arms.

Speaker 10 What's going on?

Speaker 11 I had to shoot him.

Speaker 12 He...

Speaker 13 All right, give me a second.

Speaker 11 They saw everything. He held a gun to us on the interstate.

Speaker 12 He ran us off.

Speaker 11 We were calling.

Speaker 11 I was taking pictures of his license plate. When I turned in here, he got out of that truck, had his pistol.
He ragged it, aimed, and shot. Me and Bradley started shooting back.
I mean, I can't.

Speaker 11 He was shooting at us.

Speaker 11 Why would he do that?

Speaker 9 I have no idea.

Speaker 2 Weldon Boyd is firmly telling the officer that the man in the black truck shot at him and his friend Bradley Williams.

Speaker 11 So I'm a veteran.

Speaker 11 I did not do this. I did not, well, I shot him, but he shot us first.

Speaker 9 He shot at you?

Speaker 11 He shot 100%. I was trying to back up and get away, and then he started discharging the fire on me.

Speaker 2 To this day, it's not clear who shot first.

Speaker 2 Officer Higgs now walks towards the black truck. It's about 25 yards further down Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 9 Checking on the

Speaker 14 other vehicle, Black Chevy, North Carolina Play,

Speaker 9 Romeo Charlie 1538.

Speaker 2 Inside the truck, a white man is slumped over the center console. Higgs reaches in and prods the man's back.

Speaker 16 Sir.

Speaker 2 The driver doesn't move.

Speaker 9 Tampa's One is definitely 10-7.

Speaker 2 10-7 is police code for out of service. Officer Higgs is telling his colleagues that the man in the black truck is dead.

Speaker 2 Higgs walks over to Boyd. He's pacing back and forth.

Speaker 9 Calm down.

Speaker 14 Listen, listen, listen.

Speaker 9 I understand.

Speaker 11 It's self-defense. I understand.

Speaker 9 I just want you to sit down. Calm down.
Take a breather.

Speaker 14 There's nothing to be sorry about. Just sit down and take a breathing, sir.

Speaker 12 All

Speaker 2 It's now been about 20 minutes since the shooting, and Weldon Boyd is very clear. He and Bradley Williams shot in self-defense.

Speaker 2 The second officer to arrive is Sergeant Damon Viscovy. He's just coming on duty, and he's driving pretty fast to Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 12 You dumbass!

Speaker 2 Viscovy is an experienced officer who's been been on the force for over 20 years. When he arrives at the crime scene, it's still pretty chaotic.

Speaker 2 Witnesses are milling around and cars are driving through.

Speaker 18 Get your car out of the way now!

Speaker 2 It's around 6.30 p.m.

Speaker 2 Paramedics are now on the scene. They climb into the black truck, noting the gunshot wounds on the driver's body.

Speaker 17 Just watch what you're touching.

Speaker 2 Blood covers the front seat and soaks a pair of brown cowboy boots stuffed behind it.

Speaker 2 One of the paramedics tells Sergeant Viscoby the name of the dead man.

Speaker 19 Scott Spivey, the boy lame.

Speaker 20 Scott Spivey?

Speaker 10 Yeah, from Tamar C.

Speaker 9 Mission Tamer.

Speaker 15 Scott Spivey.

Speaker 12 Wow.

Speaker 15 Wow. I know him.

Speaker 2 Scott Spivey.

Speaker 2 The name hangs in the air as Viscovy tries to look him up on his phone. A few minutes later, Viscovy tells another another officer that he knows the dead man.
It seems to be bothering him.

Speaker 20 Well, you know what's weird?

Speaker 10 I know that guy's dead.

Speaker 20 Okay. He's just so out of character.

Speaker 20 He's a church-going guy.

Speaker 20 I think he had it down soon.

Speaker 10 That don't sound like him at all.

Speaker 2 Spivey had to have been on something, says Viscovy.

Speaker 2 That don't sound like him at all.

Speaker 2 I was able to reconstruct the last hours of Scott Spivey's life using phone records and security camera footage.

Speaker 2 Spivey had been in North Myrtle Beach, a vacation town about 15 miles away from Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 2 Before he was shot and killed, Spivey spent his Saturday afternoon at a bar called Boardwalk Billy's.

Speaker 2 It's tucked away from the high-rise condos and many golf courses along the beach, a favorite spot with locals. Spivey chatted with other folks at the bar and watched college football.

Speaker 2 Scooting, scoring, touchdown,

Speaker 2 After about five hours at the bar, Spivey settled his tab. It came to $89, which covered a cheeseburger, a spicy tuna roll, seven beers, and eight shots of Fireball Cinnamon whiskey.

Speaker 2 It's unclear how many of these drinks he consumed himself, but security footage shows him buying shots for other customers.

Speaker 2 At 5.40 p.m., Spivey texted a woman he'd been seeing. What are you doing tonight? At 5.41, he texted a different woman.
By all accounts, when Spivey left Boardwalk Billy's, he wasn't fit to drive.

Speaker 22 There is a guy that is waving a gun in front of me trying to shoot at my car and the other one's beside us.

Speaker 2 Weldon Boyd wasn't the first person to call 911 about Scott Spivey. A few minutes earlier, a young woman on her way home from a waitressing job spoke with a dispatcher.

Speaker 22 He's all over the road, and I have his license plate number.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 2 okay he's waving the gun right now

Speaker 22 he's waving it out the window at everybody i don't know if he's um under the influence of anything because he's all over the road

Speaker 2 the woman says that she saw spivey's black truck break suddenly in front of weldon boyd's white truck forcing boyd into the median

Speaker 2 after boyd got back on the highway she followed both trucks onto camp swamp road

Speaker 22 He is pulled over on the side of the road. Actually, I am not.
Um, oh my god, oh my god, I don't know what's going on. He's jumping out of the truck.
I'm turning the same way.

Speaker 22 There is a truck behind him.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 5 oh my god, hey!

Speaker 23 What happened, ma'am? What happened?

Speaker 5 Did he fire a gun?

Speaker 18 Ma'am, ma'am.

Speaker 10 Oh, my God.

Speaker 8 Ma'am, I've got to move.

Speaker 5 I've got to move. Okay.

Speaker 23 Just keep, just keep going, ma'am.

Speaker 23 I'm sorry. A lot.

Speaker 24 So, what's your name?

Speaker 2 Blaise Ward. It's B-L-A-I-Z.

Speaker 2 Ward, W-A-R-D.

Speaker 2 About a half hour after the shooting. Blaise Ward was interviewed by a police officer.
They're standing at the intersection of Highway 9 and Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 2 To the officer, Ward seems like a key witness.

Speaker 24 Wait, I'm going to back you up so I get this right because you literally saw everything from start to finish.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 14 the what truck pulled over first?

Speaker 25 The black truck. The black.

Speaker 2 He stopped in front of the white truck. I'm talking like in the road, not off the road,

Speaker 2 dead in front of him. Stopped.

Speaker 2 Ward has just witnessed something shocking. And there are inconsistencies in her statements to police.

Speaker 2 For instance, Ward says that Spivey shot at her car, but when she and the officer look for any evidence that happened, they can't find it.

Speaker 2 Ward also says that after turning onto Camp Swamp Road, she saw Scott Spivey shooting into Weldon Boyd's white truck.

Speaker 24 And how many times do you think he shot?

Speaker 15 Oh, God.

Speaker 2 It had to be more than seven.

Speaker 20 Shot.

Speaker 2 I don't want to be exaggerate or nothing like that, so I ain't going to say too much.

Speaker 24 Seven? Into the windshield?

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 2 Basically front of the truck.

Speaker 2 But the reason why I say windshield is because I've seen that glass popping.

Speaker 2 From my reporting, I've determined that what Blaise Ward is saying here is not true. Spivey did fire bullets on Camp Swamp Road, but none of them went through Boyd's windshield.

Speaker 2 The glass was popping because bullets were being fired out from inside Boyd's truck. The officer relays Ward's statements to his colleagues.

Speaker 14 So the girl in the white Nissan saw everything start to finish behind the whole thing all the way from like

Speaker 12 colonial charters

Speaker 14 all the way up to she was stopped right behind them right here while people in the black truck got out and shot into the winch hunter.

Speaker 14 Out here,

Speaker 19 right here.

Speaker 19 He started drawing the gun all the way back there. Just pointed at her.

Speaker 15 All the way back by.

Speaker 2 Boyd and Williams say they shot in self-defense. And Ward's statement appears to support that.

Speaker 2 The statements from other witnesses will appear to as well.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 It was way started.

Speaker 2 this witness is a blonde woman wearing a t-shirt that reads just a girl who loves donkeys she also saw scott spivey driving erratically in his black truck that black truck come flying by us we we had our like blaze ward this witness says spivey ran boyd's white truck off the road

Speaker 26 black truck slammed on brakes this one couldn't do nothing but go into the grass you could see the dirt flying from where he had

Speaker 2 Basically, according to witnesses, whatever happened, the black truck started it.

Speaker 2 Another witness was driving past the trucks when the shooting started.

Speaker 16 The guy in the black truck locked up his brake, like stopped quick, jumped out with a pistol. I saw it when he got off the truck.

Speaker 17 He had his pistol like this, screaming and hollering.

Speaker 2 He says that Scott Spivey got out of his black truck with a gun in his hand.

Speaker 14 And then as I got past him, I just heard shots and I freaking took off like this with like a bat out of hell called one and turned around.

Speaker 14 But yeah, no, the guy in the black jumped out with a pistol drawn.

Speaker 16 What was he wearing?

Speaker 2 Together, these witness statements will help the police reach a quick decision about who was in the right and who was in the wrong on Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 2 South Carolina's stand-your ground law is different from many other states. Elsewhere, a person might be required to retreat if faced with a life-threatening situation, but not in this state.

Speaker 2 In South Carolina, a person has no duty to retreat if they are faced with this set of circumstances. Number one, you're in fear for your life.
Number two, you're not the aggressor.

Speaker 2 And number three, you are in a place where you have a right to be. For the police at the scene, Weldon Boyd is meeting all these conditions.
He was scared of an erratic driver with a gun.

Speaker 2 He didn't provoke him, and he was in his truck, a place where he had the right to be. All of this influences how the police handled the case from the beginning.
Camp Swamp Road is not a murder scene.

Speaker 2 About 45 minutes after the shooting, Sergeant Damon Viscovi tells another cop why Boyd and Williams haven't been detained.

Speaker 23 It sounds like it's clear self-defense.

Speaker 20 Okay. Everybody that's here witnessed by us except that guy was trying to run him off the road way back at Bellam Belt.

Speaker 23 He even pointed the gun at the girl in the white car. Okay.
And shot at her.

Speaker 23 And shot at her? Yeah.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 20 I don't know what. And I know the guy.

Speaker 2 The first officer at the scene, Carrie Higgs, sums it up another way.

Speaker 17 These two boys are

Speaker 9 once a shot.

Speaker 9 It's that old mess around, find out thing.

Speaker 2 It's that old mess around, find out thing.

Speaker 2 The most senior officer on the scene walks over to Weldon Boyd, who's standing next to his trailer.

Speaker 5 He shot at us.

Speaker 12 Partner, we're good.

Speaker 10 You're good. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 20 Things happen, you know.

Speaker 12 I don't understand this one.

Speaker 18 Detective come up here.

Speaker 27 We'll let your attorney come down here once he gets there.

Speaker 11 There's probably

Speaker 11 skid marks from where he ran in that ditch down there.

Speaker 2 One of the witnesses, the woman in the donkey shirt, also has some reassuring words.

Speaker 12 Calm down.

Speaker 10 All right. Ain't nobody said you did anything right.

Speaker 12 Okay. I know.

Speaker 8 Just feel like you did, don't you know? Yeah, well, I mean, no, look.

Speaker 18 Nobody wants to go through that.

Speaker 12 That's right. But you got to understand you're here.
We'll get through all this, okay?

Speaker 2 The police have identified the driver of the white truck as the victim and the driver of the black truck as the perpetrator. The victim is about to head to the station.

Speaker 2 He'll give a statement and go home. The perpetrator, his family hasn't been told he's dead yet.

Speaker 2 How they find out is next.

Speaker 2 I grew up in North Carolina, and I've covered the south for the Wall Street Journal for more than 20 years. In that time, I've reported on a lot of crimes, many of them involving guns.

Speaker 2 Horrie County, where this shooting happened, is a very unique place. For starters, it's pronounced Ori, but spelled H-O-R-R-Y,

Speaker 2 and it proudly calls itself the Independent Republic of Ori.

Speaker 2 Horry County is over 1,200 square miles, bigger than the entire state of Rhode Island, and it's a place that loves guns. Shootings here are not uncommon.

Speaker 2 All this creates some real challenges for law enforcement. The Horry County Police Department covers a vast area with a lot of crime.

Speaker 2 The shooting on Camp Swamp Road happened at an inconvenient time for the police. It was around 6 p.m.
on a Saturday, right at the end of a long shift for many Horry County officers.

Speaker 2 In the body cam recordings from the crime scene, you can hear some officers complaining.

Speaker 28 I'm about to say, we haven't eaten since breakfast.

Speaker 18 I know.

Speaker 28 And this body needs nourishment.

Speaker 2 The weariness at the crime scene carries over to the police station, and it's etched on the face of Alan Jones, the detective overseeing the shooting investigation.

Speaker 2 It's around 9.45 p.m. and Jones is in a break room preparing to take a statement from the driver of the white truck, Weldon Boyd.

Speaker 2 Detective Jones rubs his eyes and cracks open a can of Mountain Dew.

Speaker 2 Weldon Boyd sits across from him, arms folded, legs wide. He isn't under arrest.
Boyd is here to give a voluntary statement to help police with the investigation.

Speaker 2 And helping the police is what Boyd says he was doing all along starting with the 911 call

Speaker 11 i was talking to dispatcher and i'm trying to just someone needs to follow this guy until a cop can get behind me and i i even told i said he's he might shoot at the cops yeah yeah but i got it i mean i can i can detective jones nods along i just wanted to make sure that there was eyes on that car until an officer showed up i didn't realize that somebody can get there i'm with you i'm tracking

Speaker 2 jones only has a few questions for Boyd. He wants to understand the events that led to the shooting, and he asked Boyd why he turned in after Spivey on Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 11 I was trying to tell the dispatcher where he was going, and we had just basically jumped my truck. At some point, I needed to shot stop and make sure nothing flew out.

Speaker 13 I didn't know that he was parked, right?

Speaker 11 When I turned on, he was waiting.

Speaker 2 Boyd is telling Jones that he turned down Camp Swamp Road to check on his trailer. This isn't what he told the 911 dispatcher.
In that call, Boyd said he was following Spivey.

Speaker 11 I mean, I wasn't looking for trouble. I was towing a fucking couch.
I don't know what happened, but the dude tried to shoot us. I mean, he aimed right at me and started shooting.

Speaker 2 Boyd gets up out of his chair and begins recreating Spivey's last moments. He acts out how Spivey got out of his black truck.

Speaker 2 Boyd swings his right arm in front of him, pointing his fingers like he's holding a gun. Detective Jones watches quietly, his eyes following Boyd's hand as it moves through the air.

Speaker 13 At that point, I looked right down the barrel and it started going off.

Speaker 11 And that's when I just brake pedal, bring the weapon, and I engage.

Speaker 2 There are only three people who know who shot first. Scott Spivey, Bradley Williams, and Weldon Boyd.

Speaker 2 While one witness says that he saw Spivey get out of his truck with a gun, he didn't see the exact moment that the gunfire began. But both Boyd and Williams say that Spivey shot first.

Speaker 2 Boyd describes to Detective Jones how he responded.

Speaker 12 We hear,

Speaker 11 so I shot, because you don't know if someone has a beat on you.

Speaker 11 He just shot at us. I mean, I don't know if he's trying to, still trying to kill me.

Speaker 25 I don't know.

Speaker 13 I can't see him.

Speaker 11 So I just put, I don't know, two or three more. into where I thought he was in the vehicle and then it went silent.

Speaker 2 Through my reporting, I found that Boyd and and Williams fired at least 29 bullets at Spivey.

Speaker 2 According to Boyd, it was his bullet that killed him.

Speaker 2 Detective Jones appears to be satisfied that this was a killing done in self-defense, a random altercation between two strangers.

Speaker 11 Did you ever seen this guy before? I don't know who he is, and I think I overheard somebody say his name was Scott Svivey. I looked him up on Facebook, and we're not even Facebook friends.

Speaker 2 Back at Camp Swamp Road, police are clearing the crime scene. Spivey's black truck is being towed away.
His body is still inside.

Speaker 2 It's dark now, over three hours since the shooting. No one from the police department has contacted Scott Spivey's family.

Speaker 2 At 9:22, a red car pulls up to the crime scene. One of the remaining officers walks up to a blonde woman sitting on the passenger side.

Speaker 10 Hello.

Speaker 20 Hey, I'm Corporal Raven.

Speaker 11 Got some questions?

Speaker 2 Yes, sir.

Speaker 12 What's your question?

Speaker 2 Talking to you. Lindsay Bell, Scott Spivey's first cousin.
She's heard there's been a shooting and that Spivey was involved.

Speaker 2 Is he dead? Because I know someone is dead.

Speaker 13 I don't know.

Speaker 17 I just know he's been transported from here.

Speaker 13 There's no one else left here. The only thing we're doing now is clearing up about to open up the scene.

Speaker 2 But has he been transported which way?

Speaker 13 I have no idea.

Speaker 10 Sorry.

Speaker 2 Belle pulls out her phone and calls her family.

Speaker 2 Hi. Hey, I'm sitting here talking to two officers, Jenny.

Speaker 2 What's Aunt Deborah's number?

Speaker 2 Jenny is Jennifer Spivey-Foley, Scott Spivey's older sister.

Speaker 2 I heard something happen on Camp Swamp, and I was like, what do you mean something happened on Camp Swamp?

Speaker 2 Jennifer had been getting her two toddlers ready for bed. when she got an unexpected phone call.
It was her brother's best friend, Christian.

Speaker 2 My babies are in the bathtub, and I get them out of the bathtub.

Speaker 2 They're still wet. And I look at my phone.
I was like, Christian, I was like,

Speaker 2 why is Christian calling me? That's Scott's best friend, not my best friend. Like, it's nine o'clock at night.
Yeah. And it just, I just,

Speaker 2 it just flew over me. And I was like, what, something's wrong.

Speaker 2 Christian said something had happened to Scott. Within minutes, Jennifer and her husband, Grayson Foley, were in the car.
The whole way there, all I did nothing but prayed and I screamed.

Speaker 2 And Grayson's like, calm down, calm down. And I'm like, I can't.
Like, I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2 He won't answer his phone. And I mean, you don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2 At 9.25, Jennifer arrives at Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 12 This is a sister.

Speaker 20 This is sister. Okay.

Speaker 2 Jennifer sees a white truck being towed away. Its windshield shot out.

Speaker 2 Blue lights are flashing everywhere. When she asks an officer what's going on, he says he can't tell her.
I look at my cousin, I'm saying,

Speaker 2 either Scott's been murdered or he's murdered somebody. What's going on? And no one will tell us.
And you said, is he at the hospital? Is he at the morgue? Why won't somebody tell me what's going on?

Speaker 10 Is he at the hospital?

Speaker 2 And they're like, we can't tell you anything.

Speaker 2 We don't have any information. We're just here to

Speaker 2 traffic control.

Speaker 13 Hey, young lady, I'm Corporal Aben, okay?

Speaker 25 I'm going to tell you the same thing we told them. The detectives are not here.
Anyone evolved's not here.

Speaker 12 The only thing we've been left to do.

Speaker 2 Jennifer is shaking.

Speaker 2 The cops won't tell her anything. Her brother isn't there, and it's clear something bad happened.
I remember that feeling, and it kind of makes my stomach flutter.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I couldn't, I could not catch my breath.

Speaker 2 By now, it's 9.28 p.m.

Speaker 2 The officers agree it'd be okay to go ahead and tell the family that Scott Spivey is dead. One officer swigs from a can of energy drink.
He says he'll be the one to do it.

Speaker 14 Man, I don't have a problem telling them.

Speaker 15 Hey, you're the lieutenant.

Speaker 2 Other family members have arrived, including Scott Spivey's parents. At 9:39, they gather under a bright streetlight.
Jennifer stands outside her parents' car.

Speaker 2 Her mother is in the back seat with the windows down.

Speaker 2 The officer begins explaining what happened.

Speaker 27 It stemmed from a rubber agency

Speaker 29 and

Speaker 12 there was a shooting involved.

Speaker 27 Scott was involved in this.

Speaker 10 And unfortunately, he did pass away.

Speaker 27 We have your contact information and everything to give to the coroner.

Speaker 27 Right now, nothing has been released,

Speaker 27 but I think you should know what is going on.

Speaker 16 Yes, sir.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 8 tell me everything.

Speaker 2 It's a little hard to hear on the police body cam, but Scott Spivey's mother begs the officer to tell her everything.

Speaker 27 Ma'am, I can't get into a lot of it because it's still an ongoing investigation.

Speaker 27 As what I can

Speaker 27 briefly tell you was apparently Scott was road raging with somebody else and he tried shooting at them and they fired back at him.

Speaker 8 Oh my god.

Speaker 2 Jennifer puts her hands over her face. She bends over, rocking back and forth.

Speaker 27 There's not a lot I can answer because it is an ongoing investigation, but if you have any questions you think I might be able to answer, I'd gladly try.

Speaker 2 Spabby's mother asked if her son died instantly.

Speaker 10 Did he die instantly?

Speaker 27 I wasn't here, but it appears.

Speaker 2 There was just a heaviness

Speaker 13 in the air.

Speaker 2 But it was like a.

Speaker 2 a blank heaviness.

Speaker 2 There was nothing. It was a void.

Speaker 2 You could already feel the void that was there.

Speaker 20 I'm sorry for your loss.

Speaker 23 All right. Y'all be careful.

Speaker 20 Which way will y'all be going back this way? We're going to go our way, babe.

Speaker 25 Okay, give me just a second. I'll help y'all get out on the road, okay?

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 10 It's going to be kind of hard to see with these blue lights.

Speaker 2 Jennifer spent the night at her parents' house. Her mind was racing.

Speaker 2 Did you sleep that night? No, I laid in my bed and I had my phone. I don't know if I slept at all that night.

Speaker 2 Jennifer was full of questions. All she knew was that someone had killed her brother.
She pulled up the website for the Horry County Jail.

Speaker 2 If anyone had been arrested for her brother's death, this is where she'd find them.

Speaker 2 And I just kept pressing refresh, refresh, refresh. And by six o'clock that next morning, when nobody popped up

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 manslaughter, for murder, for discharging a weapon for nothing, I knew something was wrong.

Speaker 2 Nobody popped up because the man who killed her brother had not been charged with a crime.

Speaker 2 About eight hours after the shooting at 2.10 a.m., Detective Alan Jones emailed a report to to his colleagues. It said that the incident appeared to be the result of road rage.
He added, quote, Mr.

Speaker 2 Spivey stopped on Camp Swamp Road, exited his vehicle, and fired. Detective Jones closed out his report by saying, quote, all indications are that the actions of Mr.
Williams and Mr.

Speaker 2 Boyd are justified.

Speaker 2 Horry County Police had already begun to wind down their investigation, but Jennifer's was just beginning. You start putting these pieces together like

Speaker 2 something's just not

Speaker 2 something's not right.

Speaker 2 Coming up on Camp Swamp Road.

Speaker 12 He's a good hard-working guy who found himself being shot at

Speaker 2 and he shot back. Well you would expect more

Speaker 2 compassion.

Speaker 16 more reverence.

Speaker 2 To me, it almost bordered on desecration.

Speaker 11 Oh, I was on his ass, and his truck couldn't outrun my truck.

Speaker 1 And he knew it. So, yeah, he was terrified.

Speaker 28 I need new evidence that changes the facts of this case. And right now, we have not received any.

Speaker 21 I was working, I was in the shadows last night. I weren't there, but I was in the shadows.

Speaker 2 Everything

Speaker 2 we thought,

Speaker 2 everything

Speaker 2 that we questioned, we had positive affirmation in those cosmos.

Speaker 28 It was like pouring gasoline on it and setting it on fire.

Speaker 17 I mean, they were explosive. The things you hear are explosive.

Speaker 2 If it's not standing your ground, what is it?

Speaker 12 I mean, I think it was just murder.

Speaker 2 Camp Swamp Road is part of the journal, which is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. I'm Valerie Borline.

Speaker 2 Our senior producer is Rachel Humphreys. Our producer is Heather Rogers.

Speaker 2 Editing by Colin McNulty.

Speaker 2 Fact-checking by Nicole Fasulka.

Speaker 2 Music, sound design, and mixing by Nathan Singapock. Our theme music is by So Wiley.
Remixed for the series by Nathan Singap.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to Catherine Brewer, Miguel Bastillo, Sam Enriquez, Pia Gakari, Carlos Garcia, Matt Kwong, Jennifer Levitz, Jessica Mendoza, Bruce Orwal, Vilana Patterson, Sarah Platt, and Cam Pollack.

Speaker 2 Thanks for listening. Episode 2 will be released next Sunday.