In 1973, Melvin "Smokey" Harris, then 16 years old, was arrested in Chester County, South Carolina, in connection with a series of robberies. Following his arrest, Harris implicated two of his friends, Ray Charles Degraffenreid and James Robert McClurkin, in the 1973 murder of Claude Killian, a 74-year-old white man who was killed during an armed robbery at the Highlander Cleaning Center in Chester. Harris testified against Degraffenreid and McClurkin, leading to their convictions in 1977. As a
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