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By Jay King
HOMETOWN NEWS
The brutal shooting death of an eight-year-old girl last week has left the entire county in a state of shock and disbelief even after area residents had watched the search for a serial killer unfold in neighboring Cherokee County earlier in the week.
The crime that took the life of Heather Brooke Center, 8, of 981 Lightwood Knot Road, Woodruff, was so brazen and heinous that Seventh Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy has already decided to seek the death penalty in the case.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office has charged Ricky Lee Blackwell, 50, of 248 Ridings Rd., Chesnee, with kidnapping and murder after witnesses say he took Center from a vehicle arriving at 244 Ridings Rd. around 3 p.m., put her in a headlock and shot her once in the head and as many as three more times as she was falling to the ground.
Spartanburg County Sheriff’ Chuck Wright described the crime as the most brutal shooting he has ever encountered in his law enforcement career, a crime made all the more heinous because he personally knew the victim
“I knew this little girl,” Wright said during an interview Friday. “I watched her grow up from the time she was three…it was somebody you know, somebody who calls you ‘Mr. Chuck.’”
An emotionally drained sheriff said that he was very proud of his officers who responded to the scene and who very clearly had the opportunity to mete out summary justice to a still-armed Blackwell when they cornered him behind a residence a short time after Center was killed in front of several witnesses. Several of those witnesses were children.
Investigators reported that when officers cornered Blackwell, he refused to follow commands and shot himself in the abdomen before officers could take him into custody. Wright said Blackwell was later taken to Spartanburg Regional Medical Center where he was registered under an assumed name and placed in a guarded room.
“I don’t really have any answers about why this happened,” Wright said. ‘This is not fair to everybody who loved this child.”
The sheriff went on to say that he was proud of his officers for their restraint at a very emotional crime scene. He said his officers were able to do their jobs, to turn off their “daddy” mode and take the suspect into custody even though many across the community are asking why officers didn’t just kill the suspect on sight.
“We are better than that,’ Wright said. “Sometimes I don’t want to be better than that, these officers don’t want to be better than that…it’s very, very frustrating.”
Wright said that like many of his deputies and investigators, sleeping has been difficult this past week. He implored the community to not only pray for the families of those affected by the crime but for the deputies, investigators and coroner’s personnel who had to respond to such a crime.
“I don’t ever want to hear anything about these deputies not caring, not being compassionate,” Wright said. “God did not have anything to do with this scene. This was absolutely evil…I have no idea why these things are allowed to play out the way they are.”
In addition to asking the community for their prayers for both the families involved and his officers who had to respond, Wright urged members of the community to be cautious with who they let their children be around and to take advantage of every minute of time they are given to spend with those children.
According to investigators, Blackwell’s condition was expected to improve enough by the middle of this week that he could be released from the hospital.
jking@hometown-news.com
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