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In a victory for transparency and public access to government records, sixty-five jailhouse phone calls from the accused butcher of Colleton County – 34-year-old Ryan Lenard Manigo – will be released this week by the order of South Carolina circuit court judge Robert Bonds.
Manigo is charged with murdering six people in the Green Pond Massacre – a horrific mass stabbing and arson attack that took place on the morning of July 2, 2023 in rural Colleton County. Among the dead? Manigo’s own daughter and his sister-in-law – as well as several other members of his wife’s family.
Lawyers with the S.C. Commission on Indigent Defense (SCCID) waged a year-long battle to keep Manigo’s jailhouse calls private. A final attempt to prevent disclosure came on October 25, 2024 when defense attorney Boyd Young filed a motion to reconsider the release – claiming the publication of Mangio’s detention center communications would violate his client’s state and federal rights.
Bonds – a native of Aiken, S.C. who was elected to the circuit court in 2021 – was not swayed by Young’s arguments.
First reported by FITSNews, Manigo’s horrific murder spree began in the early morning hours when police say he entered his family’s home on Folly Creek Lane under cover of darkness. Hours later, emergency crews were called to respond to a fully involved house fire. Inside the charred ruins of the home, six people were found dead. A seventh victim – a thirteen-year-old girl – was found at the scene fighting for her life. She survived the attack by pretending to be dead.

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Prior to her being transported from the scene to receive treatment for her life-threatening injuries, the unnamed victim provided essential information to law enforcement about the suspect – and his vehicle. This information led directly to the identification, apprehension and arrest of Manigo.
The victims who perished in the massacre were as follows: Maggie Magwood, the 101-year-old family matriarch, Amose Magwood, 73, Jefferson Burnell, 49, Michele Marie Wright, 50, Sariya Manigo (the accused killer’s 11-year-old daughter) and Shamiah Rutledge, 7.
Most of the victims of this macabre attack were related to each other – and to Manigo’s wife. They had gathered at the home of Maggie Magwood to celebrate the Fourth of July. All of the victims except for the homeowner were stabbed to death, while the minors were sexually assaulted prior to being stabbed.
Manigo “unlawfully seized and confined the juvenile and her juvenile cousin inside the residence, forcibly raping them both at knife point,” according to probable cause affidavits accompanying the warrants for Manigo’s arrest. He then proceeded to “set the house on fire and stabbed both juveniles multiple times, killing the juvenile cousin,” the warrants further alleged.
Surviving family members have struggled to understand the unspeakable savagery of the crime – which to them was compounded by the fact Magwood and her family had supported Manigo. A butcher at the IGA supermarket in Walterboro, Manigo has been held without bond at multiple Lowcountry detention centers while awaiting trial. He is facing 21 charges including six counts of murder, six counts of possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of criminal sexual conduct, two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, one count of incest and arson.
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RELATED | APPEALS COURT DISMISSES JAILHOUSE CALL CASE
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Multiple media outlets including FITSNews have sought Manigo’s jailhouse calls.
In the Palmetto State, the release of jail phone calls is governed by the S.C. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which mandates that public records be made available upon request unless their disclosure would interfere with an ongoing investigation, reveal a confidential source or compromise the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Personal information may be withheld to prevent an unreasonable invasion of privacy. Also, importantly, inmate calls with attorneys are exempted from disclosure under attorney-client privilege.
On October 31, 2023, Bonds ordered detention centers in Colleton and Clarendon counties – two places where Manigo has been held – to release the audio recordings. That same day, Manigo’s taxpayer-funded legal team filed a motion to reconsider – and a motion to stay – and within a few days appealed Bonds’ ruling. On January 24, 2024, the S.C. court of appeals declined to hear the case – instead identifying a process by which the defendant and his legal counsel could challenge the release of the calls on an individual basis. The next day, attorneys for Manigo filed a petition for rehearing. On March 18, 2024, the appeals court denied the petition and the case was remanded back to Colleton County.
Nearly a year later after Bonds first ordered the calls to be released, on October 25, 2024 he ruled again on Manigo’s calls – this time specifying the release of audio recordings of 65 phone calls made between July 2023 and October 2023. The decision came out of an in camera hearing on May 7, 2024 when the court reviewed the calls to determine how they should be handled. Last week’s order indicated that 40 calls are to be released in their entirety, 25 calls are to be redacted and released, and seven calls are to be withheld.
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“(The) recordings are public records subject to FOIA,” Bonds noted, adding that “the defendant will suffer no constitutional deprivations because of the release of the recordings.”
Bonds denied the defense’s latest motion to reconsider and the recordings of the calls are to be released to the requesting parties on November 1, 2024. The two county jails where Manigo has been detained have already turned them over to the defense for redaction.
As our coverage of this nightmarish case continues, look for FITSNews to reveal the content of those calls as soon as they are received. At the same time, we will be trying to find out why Manigo and his legal team fought so hard to keep them private.
As our regular audience is well aware, FITSNews has been at the vanguard of this important open records conversation. We were the first media outlet to publish convicted killer Alex Murdaugh’s pretrial phone calls with multiple members of his family – calls which, incidentally, exposed an attempt by Murdaugh to unethically readmit his surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, into the University of South Carolina law school.
More relevant at the systemic level, jail house calls exclusively obtained by this media outlet pulled the curtain back on other various and sundry nefariousness in our courts. Specifically, they exposed attempts by accused killers to leverage the influence of powerful lawyer-legislators like S.C. minority leader Todd Rutherford to manipulate bond dockets.
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THE RULING…
(S.C. Fourteenth Judicial Circuit)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Callie Lyons is a journalist, researcher and author. Her 2007 book ‘Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal’ was the first to cover forever chemicals and their impact on communities – a story later told in the movie ‘Dark Waters.’ Her investigative work has been featured in media outlets, publications, and documentaries all over the world. Lyons also appears in ‘Citizen Sleuth’ – a 2023 documentary exploring the genre of true crime.
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7 comments
As with other cases, I strongly disagree that private phone calls between inmates in a jail or prison should be fodder for consumption by the media and/or public, especially as in this case, where the inmate has yet to be convicted. Absent a particularly newsworthy aspect, such as the planning of a hit or an escape, this has no business in the media.
If Manigo is found guilty of these terrible crimes, I have no problem with him receiving the death penalty, but in the interest of human dignity, both for the inmate and their contacts, their privacy in phone calls should be respected.
Charged with murdering 6 people and you want to respect his phone calls?
Until proven guilty or a guilty please in court, it is a charge. Our system supposedly adheres to a doctrine of “Innocent until proven guilty”. As I noted, once convicted, I am fine if they chop his head off. Until then, any of us deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The way I see it is the calls were made on a government owned phone which makes any communication subject to FOIA.
Hi River. You bring up a point that I wonder about. Who pays for the call, and how much? Back in the early 1970’s, I believe about 73 or so, our Legislature or PSC, I don’t recall which, worked out a deal with the telephone companies in South Carolina. The phone companies wanted to jack the cost of local pay phone calls up from a dime, to $.25 per call. The state agreed but with exceptions. Phones located in courthouses, hospitals, jails, and prisons, (and possible other locations) would remain at ten cents per call.
Somewhere along the line, that apparently changed. Stories were rampant about local jails gouging prisoners and their contacts with ridiculous fees for local calls. Seems as though I read or heard of fees as high as $38.00 for a few minutes at some. Rumour had it that former Lexington County Sheriff Metts’ wife was the beneficiary of these inflated rates on calls from the Lexington County jail. IF that was ever truly the case, I wonder if it still is.
While I understand recording or monitoring these calls “for security purposes”, if the prisoner or their contact is paying such a ridiculous rate for the calls, it should not be fodder for media or public consumption absent a blatant public safety interest.
Observer, perhaps you are unaware, but inmates in jail are told multiple times (to include the words being posted by the telephone) that their calls are “subject to monitoring” and are “being recorded”. This message also appears (via audio announcement over the actual telephone in their hand) prior to their actual call ever being connected on the distant end. There is no possible way that inmates are unaware that their calls are being recorded and monitored. They consent to all of this by talking on the telephone while in jail.
I get that, but still do not believe that the content of their calls should be fodder for media or public consumption, unless it is something directly pertaining to public safety, such as ordering a hit on someone, or perhaps the planning of an escape.