In Chesnee, South Carolina on November 6, 2003, a customer drives into the the Superbike Motor Sports Shop. He discovers a horrific scene; four people shot to death in the middle of the day.

An unknown person had murdered the owner Scott Ponder, Ponder’s mother Beverly Guy, service manager Brian Lucas and mechanic Chris Sherbert were all found fatally shot.

 

The mechanic, Chris Sherbert was found in the back of the shop, bent over as though he were working on a bike. Beverly appears to have been ambushed while stepping out of the bathroom. Brian Lucas and Scott Ponder were found dead outside in front of the store.

Deputies from the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office immediately swarm the scene of Chesnee’s first-ever quadruple homicide. With such an extreme act of violence carried out in broad daylight, it’s not long before authorities receive their first solid tip. The police will follow up on many leads over the next 13 years.

In the immediate aftermath of the murders, police will try to locate the last customer and that does not reveal a viable suspect.

They will investigate the backgrounds of all the employees because this was not a robbery. They learn the mechanic, Chris Sherbert, one of the newest employees at Superbikes Motorsports has a narcotics possession charge pending. They find there were rumors of a possible drug connection beginning to swirl. But, that does not lead to any suspects.

Authorities interview a possible witness who gives them a

description of a suspicious party seen at the shop. The police release a suspect sketch. But after several months, the investigation stalls. Then, more than a year after the murders, detectives start looking into a new angle.

The Spartanburg county sheriff’s detectives learn that the service manager, Brian Lucas, was trying to buy a house and his wife had no knowledge of that search. They immediately suspect some kind of love triangle. They wonder if Brain was cheating on his wife and about to leave her. Was there another woman and did she have a jealous husband?

And then, a break in the case that absolutely no one saw coming. Scott Pender’s (the shop owner) wife, Melissa was pregnant before the murders were committed. The sheriff’s detectives wanted to quietly make sure that Scott was the father. They had an opportunity to obtain a soiled diaper from the baby and the DNA test revealed the true father of that baby was the service manager, Brian Lucas. This revelation blew everyone away.

More than a year after the shootings, Melissa Ponder was summoned to the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Department. When they confronted Ms. Ponder, she became outraged and demanded another DNA test.  The detectives complied and the results were the same.

Melissa was positive the police had it all wrong. She would allege that they had been under a doctors supervision all the time this baby was conceived because she had  hard time getting pregnant. The police became accusatory and she finally refused to speak except though her lawyer. Ms. Ponder was under this cloud for the next 18 months.

For some reason Scott Pender’s DNA sample was matched against his mother’s DNA and they did not match like they should for a mother/son. The police will double check all the evidence gathered at the crime scene. They find the CSI or the cops at the scene had mixed up Scott’s samples with Brian’s samples.

So the question remains: Who murdered four people in cold blood that November day in Chesnee? The next episode will reveal the real suspect. This suspect will drop on the investigator out of nowhere.

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