Police Make Arrest in 37-Year-Old Walterboro Murder

WALTERBORO, S.C. (WCIV) — After almost four decades, Walterboro police have made an arrest in a murder case that’s been cold since 1978.
The suspect, 59-year-old James Willie Butterfield, was charged on Tuesday with murder, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, and burglary in the first degree.

According to the original incident report, in the early hours of May 28, 1978, two people went to police and said they found their roommate, 27-year-old Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle, partially nude and lying on the floor covered in blood.

In May of this year, an investigator spoke to one of Fogle’s relatives and reopened the case and got new leads with the help of the original case workers, family members and outside agencies.

“With the upcoming anniversary of the homicide, Gwedolyn’s family contacted our department inquiring about new leads,” said Walterboro Police Chief Wade Marvin. “They were also her biggest advocate over the years and their knowledge of the case was better than any case file we had.”

According to police, Butterfield was a person of interest back in 1978 and after “numerous interviews and extensive hours of investigative tactics” along with “evidence collected from the original crime scene” Butterfield was named as a suspect.

He is in custody and is awaiting a bond hearing.

In 1978, police responded to the Lemacks Street home and found Fogle lying on her back with her head towards the door. According to a report from the State Law Enforcement Division, she had been strangled to death.

The case went cold and remained so for 37 years, despite police and SLED agents’ attempts to solve the murder.

Author and retired SLED forensic photographer Rita Shuler discussed the case in her 2009 book “Small-Town Slayings in South Carolina.”

“Police believed that the killer(s) were inside the house when Elaine arrived home that night about 11:30 p.m., and when she went in the front door and came upon the intruder(s) she tried to run back out the front door and was brutally attacked and beaten to death,” she wrote.

Shuler notes that Fogle’s jeans were tossed up on the roof and her car was still parked in her yard but her keys were missing.

Shuler said the family was told Fogle was “beaten to death with a metal fire poker and that she put up a heck of a fight during the struggle” and that her autopsy confirmed she had been raped. The autopsy also revealed that her cause of death was “asphyxiation due to a metal fire poker about her neck.”