Don’t Get Arrested in South Carolina
In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 30, 2000, a beloved middle aged Jewish dentist was struck from behind and killed while riding his bicycle. The investigation into the death of Dr. Harry Sunshine would expose the corrupt underbelly of criminal prosecution in the heart of South Carolina, and the corrupt acts of the three largest police agencies in the state who assisted the prosecutor.
The media published that the three police agencies, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), SC Highway Patrol, and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, were looking for a “white Lexus”. This red herring was pursued for almost a month until the wife of the slain doctor was approached by a postal worker, who after having been ignored by the sheriffs’ department, told the wife that she saw a black Lexus in the vicinity of the crime at the time the death occurred. The black Lexus has a paper tag which read “Hi-Line Imports” and the vehicle was occupied by a black female driver and a black male passenger. The authorities did not plan for this revelation, and their subsequent actions entailed the cover up of the real suspects and the persecution of a man who was never involved in this death.
The authorities found a wrecked 1993 Lexus on the lot at Hi-Line Motors after the postal worker gave her statement. Photos were taken. The authorities did not take a statement from the owner of Hi-Line until a month after this, and the 1993 Lexus, in effect, was made to disappear from the attention of the authorities. Instead, the owner of Hi-Line Imports pointed out that he had sold an identical black 1994 Lexus to Charles Outlaw a few days before the doctor was killed. Now the authorities had to make it appear Charles and his wife, Tshona, were involved in the death of Dr. Sunshine even though Charles’ car had no damage from hitting a man on a bicycle.
On the night of death of Dr. Sunshine, Tshona had been out partying with girlfriends. She supposedly took one home at about 4:00a.m., but the death occurred at 5:45a.m. The girlfriend lived a few miles from the scene.
Unknown to Charles or any of the public, the initial suspect with knowledge of the death was the boyfriend of Tshona’s mother, John E. (Johnny) Brown. Also unknown to Charles was that Johnny’s chauffer, Carlos Parson, had been involved with Tshona. Now the authorities had to quickly arrest Charles and Tshona, accuse them of involvement, pressure Charles to get a quick plea and have him give a false statement implicating his wife, and let them take the fall while no record of any interview of the original suspects had been taken.
Also unknown to Charles, Tshona was going to take a plea, implicate herself in the death of Dr. Sunshine, contradict the statement of the witness who placed a black man in the passenger seat, and protect Johnny Brown. Tshona would tell fellow prisoners that she was expecting a big payoff when she got out of prison. This scenario was confirmed by Jamaican women in a Florida prison who repeated the whole story to another inmate before Tshona would take the plea.
In the meantime, Charles, having no knowledge of the reason for his wife’s agenda, would be arrested himself, charged as an accessory and knowledge of the crime, and was subjected to(1) harassment,(2) a “hit” placed upon his life, (3) an attempted extortion by his attorney, and that attorney telling him not to hire a private investigator, (4) attempts to have him sign a false document by an attorney and former state chief justice, (5) police tampering with his vehicle, (6) his attorney, the prosecutor and the arresting officer denying Charles a preliminary hearing six times over 8 months, (7) the bank being in concert with the prosecutor and police, allowing Charles’s vehicle, which had been impounded by the authorities, to be transported to the bank holding facility, compromising Charles’ defense evidence and the police tampering, removing the title from the file, and sending Charles a letter telling him that his vehicle had been repossessed even though Charles never missed a payment, (8) false accusations placed against his private investigator in order to keep him from talking to additional female inmates, (9) Charles’s arresting officer telling him not to hire and attorney from New York, and the arresting officer sending an attorney to be retained by Charles, hoping Charles would sign a false statement against Tshona, (10) threatening him to testify against another person, which he did not testify, (11) having a bond of $250,000 placed by the court against him on a charge in which the maximum fine was $500.00, (12) an unauthorized meeting between Charles and the prosecutor almost 3 years after the incident, when Charles had no attorney present, pressuring Charles to plea to a lesser charge. Charles refused, and said he wanted a trial, and walked out, (13) falsification of documents asserting that Charles had assisted in other cases (as an informant) to justify dropping a felony and misdemeanor charges, (14) hiring an attorney to represent him against the authorities, only to find out the attorney took his $5,000 retainer and 2 years later had the case dismissed without Charles’s knowledge, (15) the revelation that the prosecutor and law enforcement were in concert with Charles insurance company, and a death claim was paid to the Sunshine family, asserting that Charles’ 1994 Lexus struck Dr. Sunshine. No trial had taken place to assert that Charles’ car was involved in the death, implicating the Sunshine family in insurance fraud, (16) the refusal of Leon Lott (Richland County Sheriff) and Barney Geise (Richland County Prosecutor) to lawfully respond and turn over documents as a result of a Freedom of Information Request, (17) the removal of the photographs of the 1993 Lexus from the file in the custody of the arresting officer, Thomas Collins, and (18) having a heart attack and heart transplant, all because of the stress of the actions of the authorities.
All these things happened to protect the identity of the persons who were actually in the 1993 Lexus which struck Dr. Sunshine. These must have been very powerful men.
If the black female postal worker, Sharon Keels, had not seen the black Lexus traveling adjacent to her, weaving, while she was en route to work on the morning of September 30, 2000, this case would never have been solved, no one would have ever been arrested, the police would still be looking for their “white Lexus”, Charles and Tshona would never have been arrested, and the horror Charles faced would continue to happen to other persons in order for the authorities to protect “one of their own”, just another criminal.
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