COLUMBIA, S.C. – A second man was arrested and charged with helping hide the bodies of three people found slain in a drainage pipe near a downtown apartment complex, authorities said Friday.
All three victims — a woman who had been stabbed to death and two men fatally shot — had been attacked at a nearby apartment where the woman lived and then moved to the drainage pipe, Columbia Police Chief Dean Crisp said.
Charles Gamble, 24, the woman's ex-boyfriend and father of her young child, was charged Thursday with three counts of murder.
Crisp announced Friday that Jeremal Doreal Robinson, 21, of Columbia had also been arrested and charged as an accessory and with obstructing justice.
"We're confident that we have the man that committed the murders," Crisp said. "We're confident also that we have the individual who assisted him after the act in moving the bodies."
Investigators were reviewing several potential motives in the killings of Charlene Octavia Yarbrough, 19, Marcus Antonio Wilson, 26, and Marquis Mitchell, 25, including a possible domestic dispute, police said.
Rodrena Patrick, 20, who lives in the apartment complex, said Gamble had been living there until he and Yarbrough got into a fight about a month ago. The couple's child had been taken into protective custody, she said.
Gamble, who has a criminal record dating back to a 2000 grand larceny charge, was on probation for a stalking conviction, Crisp said.
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