COLUMBIA, S.C. — Before dawn on a steamy July day in 2015, Hampton County coroner Ernie Washington was called to an area of pine trees and cornfields, where a young man’s body was sprawled in the middle of the road.
He suffered blunt force trauma to the right side of his head but few other apparent injuries. His loosely tied shoes were still on his feet, his iPhone and keys tucked in the pocket of his khaki shorts.
Washington, a funeral home owner who had been coroner for four years, surmised this was no hit-and-run. He showed Highway Patrol officers and others arriving on the scene the spot where he believed a bullet had entered the young man’s head.
