On September 18, 2019, the body of 44-year-old Cletis Edward Baker Jr., a male, was discovered dumped on the side of Damascus Church Road in Westville, a rural area of Kershaw County, South Carolina. A woman on her way home from work made the grim discovery. Investigators with the Kershaw County Sheriff's Office and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division quickly determined that Baker had been killed at a different location and his body moved.
The homicide was traced back to a residence on Doc Humphries Road in Camden, a place known to law enforcement as a site for drug-related activities. Reports indicated that an extensive effort had been made to clean up and destroy evidence at the crime scene before authorities arrived.
The investigation into the death of Cletis 'Eddie' Baker Jr. soon led to a series of arrests. Four men from Camden were initially taken into custody and charged with accessory after the fact to murder: Joseph Michael Edwards, 35; Ronny Mac English, 53; Jackson Perry Jacobs, 27; and Christopher Gary Beasley, 19. A fifth individual, 56-year-old Renee Maksin Shannon of Camden, was later arrested and charged with accessory before the fact to murder. The investigation took a significant turn when authorities identified Corey Duane Perrine, a 25-year-old from Lexington, as the suspected shooter. At the time he was wanted for Baker's murder, Perrine was already incarcerated in North Carolina on two counts of attempted murder.
Further details emerged, suggesting the murder was a contract killing. Prosecutors alleged that Daniel Shannon, an inmate serving a life sentence, had ordered the hit on Baker from behind bars as retribution for stolen drugs. During the trial of Corey Perrine, his co-defendant, Joseph Edwards, testified that he had led Perrine to the house where Baker was sleeping. Edwards recounted that he woke Baker up, at which point Perrine shot him six times, with the final shot being delivered at close range between his eyes.
The legal proceedings took an unexpected turn in January 2024, on the night before closing arguments were scheduled in his murder trial. Corey Perrine, who was 30 years old at the time, was found dead in his cell at the Kershaw County Detention Center. Prior to his own death, Cletis Edward Baker Jr. had been a person of interest in the disappearance of Bill Black, who had been missing since August of 2018.
