South Carolina Lawyer Is Shot and Killed Outside His Office
Updated: A South Carolina lawyer was shot and killed outside his office Wednesday evening by a man who then turned the gun on himself. And a second member of the state bar was killed the following day in an unrelated homicide in which authorities are investigating to see whether there may also be a link to the attorney’s legal work.
Friends described the victim of the first homicide, slain Pickens, S.C., lawyer J. Redmond Coyle, as a family man who was a Sunday school director at the Rock Springs Baptist church, according to WYFF4.com and GreenvilleOnline.com. Coyle, 61, was an idealistic lawyer who was once arrested in a protest outside an abortion clinic with his brother-in-law, a Baptist minister, according to GreenvilleOnline.com.
The shooter, identified as Jerry Dean Crenshaw, died later at a Greenville hospital. Police found Coyle with multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot behind the back door of his office.
Coyle had represented Crenshaw’s former wife in divorce proceedings, and Crenshaw was unhappy with the settlement, GreenvilleOnline.com reported on Friday. An off duty police officer across the street saw the shooting.
Former client William Waldon praised Coyle for representing him when he had no money. “He, like I said, would give you the shirt off his back if he could,” he told WYFF4. “He helped me and I didn’t have any money to be represented, and he represented me.”
For details about the subsequent unsolved slaying of South Carolina attorney Melvin Roberts, 79, see this new post:
ABAJournal.com: “2nd S.C. Lawyer is Killed in 2 Days; Was His Slaying Also Case-Related?”
Last updated on Feb. 5 to include information about subsequent attorney homicide.
