On the night of Nov. 17, 2015, Joseph Frey, a 70-year-old man, was at a home on Narrow Paved Road in the Lynchburg area of Sumter County when an argument erupted and turned into gunfire. Deputies responding to an emergency call found Frey inside, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Another man at the residence, George Shine, had also been shot in the chest and was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Florence as investigators tried to piece together
what had happened in the moments before the shooting.
In the immediate aftermath, authorities focused on the small circle of people who had been in the home. Travis Jones, a 43-year-old from Florence, was questioned early on, and within days investigators accused him of muddying the investigation by giving false information; he was charged with obstruction of justice for statements detectives said were untrue as the case remained under investigation. At that stage, officials still had not announced a homicide charge in Frey’s killing, and they offered no public motive for why the men were together or how the confrontation began.
As the case moved forward, prosecutors ultimately identified Shine as the person responsible for the fatal shots, and he was charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Years later, the story that came into court painted the shooting as a close-range clash inside the home: Shine’s brother, Travis Jones, told authorities that Frey had shot Shine in the chest, and Shine said he fired back with a rifle, shooting Frey twice after Frey first used a firearm. When a deputy entered the residence, Shine was found on the floor with two firearms nearby—a. 22-caliber rifle with a scope and a silver semi-automatic handgun—while Frey was also lying on the floor and appeared to be dead.
The murder case did not end with a conviction. In general sessions court at the Sumter County Judicial Center, the matter was decided in a bench trial, and Judge Kristi Curtis found Shine not guilty by reason of self-defense. The ruling closed the prosecution’s attempt to hold Shine criminally responsible for Frey’s death, even as the case record preserved the grim essentials of that night: a dispute at a quiet Lynchburg-area home, shots fired at close quarters, and one man left dead on the floor where the argument ended.
