In the summer of 1999, a chilling crime rattled the city of Greenville, South Carolina, marking the beginning of a short but terrifying crime spree. On June 26, Jonathan Lemuel Lara, a 26-year-old male employee at a local Radio Shack, was found dead in the back room of the store. He had been brutally murdered, restrained to a chair with flex ties and stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver.
A co-worker discovered his body the following day after finding the store locked with a 'closed' sign in the window during business hours.
For nearly six months, the case of Jonathan Lara's murder remained unsolved, leaving the community on edge. The investigation took a dramatic turn in December of the same year when a series of violent events unfolded. On December 22, Karen Moore Hayden, a 30-year-old florist, was found murdered in the back of a flower shop in Greenville with her throat slit, a crime that bore similarities to Lara's death.
The man responsible for these heinous acts was identified as Dallen Forrest Bounds. The day after Hayden's murder, Bounds' violent rampage escalated. In the nearby town of Easley, he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Sandra Roberts Ott, and her ex-husband, Timothy Ott. This final act triggered a massive manhunt. As law enforcement closed in, Bounds broke into a home, taking two women hostage. The standoff concluded with Bounds taking his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound on December 23, 1999.
In the aftermath of Bounds' suicide, investigators were able to definitively link him to the murders of Jonathan Lara and Karen Hayden through forensic evidence found in his apartment. An anonymous tip also connected him to the two unsolved murders. Authorities also arrested Bounds' roommate, Casandra Cae Laster, in connection with Lara's death. She was charged with accessory after the fact to felony murder for withholding information about Bounds' involvement until after his crime spree ended. In 2001, a jury found Laster guilty, and she was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Her subsequent appeal in 2003 was dismissed. With Bounds dead and his accomplice convicted, the murder cases of Jonathan Lara and the other victims were officially closed.
