Horry County wants to kick cross-burning Conway couple out of their home. Here’s why
A Conway area couple that burned a cross near the home of their Black neighbors could soon be forced to move out of their longtime home.
The 15th Circuit Solicitors Office is seeking a court order to have the property on the 1400 block of Corbett Drive declared a public nuisance, allowing Horry County to remove its residents for up to a year.
Worden Butler, 28, and Alexis Hartnett, 27, are facing second-degree harassment charges in relation to the cross-burning incident, which occurred last Thanksgiving and has received national attention. Hartnett shouted racial slurs toward their Black neighbors and Butler posted threats against them on social media, according to police reports.
Attorneys representing Butler and Hartnett in their criminal cases did not respond to requests for comment.
The home, owned by Worden Butler’s mother Janet Butler since 2003, was searched by FBI agents in December. Representatives of the NAACP have said the incident is further proof that South Carolina legislators need to create a hate crime law, as the state remains one of just two in the country without one.
The complaint seeking the nuisance order alleges that Hartnett and Butler have used their property to harass, threaten and assault neighbors and others near their home for several years, though it only specifically lists the recent Thanksgiving altercation as an example.
Other neighbors previously told The Sun News that Hartnett had yelled at them for unknown reasons, and one filed a police report after she threatened to murder him, but police deemed that report unfounded because she was in custody at the time.
Solicitor Jimmy Richardson declined to discuss the nuisance filing.
South Carolina’s public nuisance ordinance permits the attorney general, solicitors or citizens to file these suits against people who are using buildings or other places in a manner that constitutes a “continuous breach of the peace.”
Richardson’s office has primarily filed nuisance cases in recent years against businesses, including gentleman’s clubs and massage parlors allegedly promoting prostitution.
An Horry County judge also recently approved the solicitor’s request to permanently close the infamous “Yellow House,” which was repeatedly a site for drug dealing and violent crime in Myrtle Beach, after several yearlong abatements.
