The murder of John Orner
Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina · 1961
Overview
John Orner, 63, a Columbia, South Carolina taxi driver who worked the soldier trade at Fort Jackson, took a dispatch to the post's NCO club at 11:15 p.m. on February 28, 1961 and never came home. His bloodied cab was found on Assembly Street the next morning and his body two days later beside Highway 601 in lower Richland County, shot once in the head from behind, his pockets pulled out. The same day he disappeared, an 18-year-old Fort Jackson private from Indiana, Edward Freiburger, had bought a .32 Harrington and Richardson revolver at a Main Street pawn shop; a month later a Tennessee trooper found the loaded gun on him while he was hitchhiking, absent without leave. The state laboratory tested that gun and a second .32 H and R taken from a local man's house; its head examiner could not identify Freiburger's gun and, according to a 1961 letter from the SLED chief to J. Edgar Hoover, believed the other gun had killed the driver. No one was charged. The sheriff's volunteer cold-case squad reopened the file in 1999, five SLED examiners again found the comparison inconclusive, and a private examiner hired by the sheriff declared a match. Freiburger was convicted of murder on August 1, 2002 and sentenced to life. In 2015 the South Carolina Court of Appeals set the conviction aside because his lawyers never showed the jury the 1961 letter. Freed on bond in 2016, he entered an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter in June 2017, maintaining his innocence, and was released for time served at 74.
How it was solved
The case was reopened and prosecuted on a firearms comparison, and the same comparison later undid the conviction. In 1961 SLED recovered one .32 caliber bullet in three fragments from Orner's head, identified the rifling as a Harrington and Richardson revolver, and test-fired two such revolvers: the one taken from Freiburger in Tennessee and one seized from the house of a local resident. The head of the firearms laboratory found some similarities to Freiburger's gun but could not establish an identification, and the SLED chief wrote to the FBI that the examiner was of the opinion the other gun had killed the taxi driver. An Army examiner was also inconclusive. The fragments, both guns and the file were preserved. In 1999 the Richland County sheriff's cold-case squad, run by a retired Army investigator who worked without pay, reopened the file and returned to the original suspect. In 2000 the supervisor of SLED's firearms laboratory re-examined the fragments against both guns and reported the result inconclusive, noting a remarkable similarity to Freiburger's gun but not enough to identify it; four more SLED examiners agreed. The sheriff's department then hired a private examiner from Missouri who concluded that striations on one fragment matched Freiburger's gun and no other, and on that opinion the state indicted Freiburger in 2001. At the 2002 trial the private examiner, the SLED supervisor and a retired SLED man who had worked under the 1961 examiner all testified for the state; the retired examiner told the jury that he and his old chief had excluded the second gun. The defense attacked the private examiner's unaccredited trailer laboratory but never introduced the 1961 letter, which was in the discovery file. The jury convicted in two hours and the Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed in 2005. In 2015 the Court of Appeals held, two to one, that failing to use the letter was ineffective assistance: it was the only evidence pointing to a different gun, it contradicted the retired examiner's testimony, and it would have turned an apparent consensus of experts into a conflict. Rather than retry a 1961 killing, the state accepted an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter in 2017.
Sources
- State v. Freiburger, 366 S.C. 125 (2005)
“Testing on the weapon was inconclusive as to whether it was the weapon used in Orner's death. No charges were filed at that time.”
- Freiburger v. State, 413 S.C. 243 (Ct. App. 2015)
“We find the letter would have deeply undermined the foundation of the State's case, its ballistics evidence.”
- Ballistics solve murder after 4 decades (August 3, 2002)
“Ballistics tests were inconclusive, however, and Freiburger was released from custody without being charged.”
- Jurors deliberate 41-year-old murder case in South Carolina (August 2, 2002)
“But a handwriting expert hired by the defense testified Thursday that Freiburger's signature didn't match the one on the bill of sale.”
- Retired Trooper provides key to 41-year-old murder case (August 2002)
“A jury of six men and six women found Freiburger guilty of the sole charge of murder on August 1 after two hours of deliberation.”
- Retired MP helps crack 40-year-old homicide case (April 11, 2001), reproduced on a memorial page
“The body of Orner, known as Yankee John because he was born in Valley Forge, Pa., was found in a ditch along a rural road a few hours after his bloodstained taxi was found in Columbia.”
- Man appeals 2002 conviction in 40-year-old slaying (May 19, 2005)
“Without that, you pretty much have nothing, don't you?”
- Indiana man heads to court charged with 1961 Richland County murder (July 29, 2002)
“A parking garage now stands on the spot where the victim's bloody car was found, and, since the 1961 murder, all of the original investigators have also died.”
- Lawyers, experts contest ballistics in 1961 murder case (July 31, 2002)
“Jury selection ended Monday in what could be the oldest murder case to go to trial in America.”
- Former soldier freed on bond in 1961 murder of Columbia cabbie (August 2, 2016)
“A former Fort Jackson soldier who was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for the 1961 robbery-murder of a Columbia taxi driver was released on $30,000 bond Monday.”
- Plea deal marks end of man's case in cab driver's 1961 death (July 3, 2017)
“Edward Freiburger, of Columbia City, Indiana, last week entered an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter, maintaining innocence but acknowledging there was enough evidence to convict him.”
- Indiana man connected to SC cab driver's death released from prison (July 4, 2017)
“Freiburger's attorney says his conviction was overturned after it was discovered the jury wasn't provided evidence that a 1961 SLED ballistics examiner concluded that a weapon not belonging to Freiburger was the murder weapon.”
- Columbia City man freed after plea deal in cab driver's death (July 3, 2017)
“Appeals courts ultimately ordered a new trial for Freiburger. Prosecutors opted for the deal instead.”
- John Howard Orner, 1897 to 1961, Crescent Hill Memorial Gardens
“Birth: 12 May 1897. Death: 1 Mar 1961 (aged 63).”