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Agents of the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) have charged the boyfriend and serial abuser of a missing Lowcountry woman with her murder, according to a news release issued on Friday afternoon.
Megan Bodiford – a 25-year-old mother of three from Denmark, S.C. – had been missing since April 24, 2024. This media outlet extensively covered the search for her – and the tragic failure of local law enforcement to hold her abuser accountable for repeated assaults against her and violations of his parole.
A grim discovery earlier this week portended ill tidings, and shortly before 2:00 p.m. EDT on Friday (May 3, 2024), SLED’s news release (.pdf) confirmed the worst fears of Bodiford’s friends and family.
Jarrett Haskell Davis, 28, of Denmark, S.C. was charged with murder, possession of a weapon during a violent crime, felon in possession of a firearm, arson and desecrating human remains. According to a probable cause affidavit accompanying warrants for his arrest, Davis “shot and murdered” Bodiford on April 25, 2024 in the Ghents Branch Road area of Denmark.
“After (he) murdered the victim, he set the victim’s vehicle on fire with the victim inside,” the affidavit continued.
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Bodiford’s remains were discovered earlier this week inside a charred vehicle located on a muddy turnoff adjacent to Turn Ray Road approximately two-and-a-half miles from downtown Denmark, S.C.
Only days earlier, she had sent an ominous text message to a friend.
“If you don’t hear from me in 30 minutes, he killed me,” her message read. “He has a gun.”
Bodiford was never heard from again …
On Saturday (April 27, 2024) – two days after Bodiford’s last text message – the Bamberg sheriff’s office asked SLED to assist in executing a search warrant for Davis on an outstanding domestic violence charge out of neighboring Barnwell County. This request was made after Bodiford’s four-month old daughter was unable to be located – and after authorities identified an active warrant for Davis’ arrest on the domestic violence charge.
He was taken into custody without incident and has been held at the Bamberg County detention center for the last six days. The four-month-old – one of three young children belonging to Bodiford – was found unharmed.
Prior to his arrest, Davis appeared to try and throw Bodiford’s friends off the scent.
“Have you heard from Megan? Anything?” Davis wrote to one of her girlfriends, seeming to express concern as to her whereabouts. “Please let me know something.”
Count on this media outlet to provide updates to this story as they become available.
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THE RELEASE …
(SLED)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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9 comments
Only justice at this point is for him to become an alligator turd.
If someone had done that with him before she turned up missing, within a month she would have found another one just like him. Parents need to impress upon their daughters at a young age that dating or marrying loosers is not smart and not cool. Otherwise they will spend much of their life chasing “bad boys”.
Some judge will give him a bond…
And our legislators waste time on stuff like gender reassignment surgery for minors, which might affect one or two people, instead of strengthening domestic violence laws in the state that is the worst for women on that issue. Thanks, Adam Morgan and the rest of the Freedumb Caucus, for ignoring important issues and focusing on the feathers for your reelection caps.
All the laws in the world will not help as long as so many women are afflicted with the terminal stupidity that is required for them to latch on to abusive men and then keep going back to them. What will happen, and has actually become the case in some places, is some hapless man or men utter something less than happy in exasperation to some psychotic woman he had the misfortune of pairing with, and now he is in jail and labeled as “an abuser”. People like Katrina Shealy (aka Jakie in a skirt) want this enjoyment extended even to high school and middle school kids.
“More laws, less justice.”
—-Marcus Cicero
‘Terminal stupidity’ – You sound real classy… Not everyone is raised to value themselves or demand respect, but anyone who is brazen enough to end their comment with a quote from Marcus Cicero should be cognizant of the fact that quite possibly, family and friends of the deceased may read this thread and find your words beyond offensive. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but until you’ve actually played the game or lived the life she had, maybe just maybe you should tape your thumbs shut!
“as long as so many women are afflicted with the terminal stupidity that is required for them to latch on to abusive men and then keep going back to them.”
As long as one-dimensional dweebs like you give your uneducated view of a multidimensional issue like domestic violence, we’ll never see abuse survivors getting the help they need.
I see this blog still has issues with people showing up with the “el oh el why don’t they just leave” brain shart of an argument completely oblivious to the statistics of domestic violence and the fact that most women who die from this sort of violence are killed during or after leaving the abuser.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Thank you.
J Doe I don’t think it’s the freedom caucus, it’s the jackass rinos who keep electing their hapless buddies to the bench so they can appear before them and get great deals for their clients while making tons of money, all the while innocent victims suffer when people like Davis never get real meaningful punishment. I would bet that if you did a little digging you would find Davis probably has an extensive record but minimal punishment to go along with it. They should be funding SCDC to build more prisons and judges should be putting people like Davis away rather than giving probation. People in SC need to wake up and realize that status quo politicians are in it for themselves, most are wealthy elites who are republicans so they can get elected , they don’t care about their constituents only about enriching themselves