News from around The Carolinas

South Carolina

GEORGETOWN COUNTY

Firefighters battle a 200-acre blaze

Firefighters with the S.C. Forestry Commission have responded to a 200-acre wildfire in Georgetown County, according to authorities.

As of 5:20 p.m., the fire was 200 acres in size with the potential to increase to 700 acres if forestry firefighters don’t get it contained, said Scott Hawkins, spokesman with the S.C. Forestry Commission.

They were dispatched at 3:26 p.m. Saturday to U.S.17 and Pennyroyal Road in Georgetown, Hawkins said. There’s an airplane and five plows on the scene. No structures are threatened, Hawkins said.

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH

Homicide under investigation in NMB

Police are investigating a homicide in North Myrtle Beach. Sometime Saturday afternoon, a man from the South Strand area went to check on his brother, who lives in the Cherry Grove section of North Myrtle Beach. He found him dead in the living room, city spokesman Pat Dowling said.

The brother called police, who then put out an alert to look for a vehicle belonging to the son of the deceased man. Police found the son’s truck, but not the son, Dowling said.

The son lives with his father, who was in his early 80s, Dowling said. Police want to talk to the son on whether he knows anything about his father’s death. They are not releasing any names or the address of the residence at this time.

Police are calling the death a homicide based on the method of the death, but they are not releasing that method at this time. Dowling said blood was found by the man’s body and that it appears he had fallen forward.

COLUMBIA

Senator, 66, not seeking re-election

Longtime state Sen. Phil Leventis, a Sumter Democrat, said Friday he will not run for re-election in November.

“I’m 66 – time to look for what else I can do while I still have time to do it,” said Leventis, who has been in the Senate since 1981. “My wife and I decided it. Thirty-two years is a long time.”

Leventis said he has spoken with several potential candidates about running for his seat. He said it remains a winnable seat for a Democrat despite newly redrawn Senate lines. “A Democrat is going to win that seat.”

ORANGEBURG

Bomb materials found at home

Authorities say they found materials that could be used to make bombs while investigating a domestic violence complaint in Orangeburg County.

Investigators said that 36-year-old Nathaniel Hearn’s girlfriend called police Thursday after she locked him out of their Cordova house after a fight. She told officers he had detonated homemade bombs before and threatened to kill her if she left him.

Authorities say they found materials that could be used to make bombs in a shed. During a bond hearing, Hearn says he used the items to entertain his son by making explosions inside a homemade cannon. Hearn also says his wife threatened him with a knife before locking him out.

North Carolina

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH

Town not releasing the names of three suspended officers

Wrightsville Beach is refusing to release the names of three police officers placed on administrative leave.

North Carolina’s Freedom of Information law requires governments to release the names of employees who are suspended, promoted, demoted or have any other change in position.

The town’s attorney is refusing to release the names because the officers are on paid administrative leave and that is not a change in position. The town has not said why the officers are being investigated, but the probe began after a complaint from within the police department in December.

Media law attorney Mike Tadych says the town’s position is wrong and its attorney is just parsing words because the officers’ duties were changed.

FAYETTEVILLE

Woman Tasered after cutting in line

Deputies used a Taser on a woman who wouldn’t surrender to them after she cut into a McDonald’s drive-through line and then refused to move her car without being served, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Evangeline Marrero Lucca, 37, of the 100 block of Snow Hill Church Road, pulled up to the window of the McDonald’s on Legion Road, near Black and Decker Road, on Friday afternoon and held up the line for about 20 minutes before deputies arrived, said Debbie Tanna, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.

Staff at the restaurant reported that Lucca drove her Ford Taurus to the pickup window, bypassing the order screen and payment window, and tried to order her food there, she said.

“She did not want to wait in line,” Tanna said. “They told her she had to go around and wait like everybody else did and place her order that way, that they weren’t set up at that window to take her order or take her money. … She wasn’t having any of that.”

Lucca was charged with second-degree trespassing. Social workers took custody of her 3-year-old child who was in the car, Tanna said.

From wire reports