Three convicted killers in Horry County among Biden’s list of commuted death row inmates
Two men convicted in the kidnapping and death of an Horry County woman from a Conway Walmart are among death row inmates whose executions were commuted by President Biden.
They are among three men whose sentences from crimes committed in Horry County were reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. President Biden commuted 37 execution sentences on Dec. 22, 2024.
Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks kidnapped and killed Galivants Ferry resident Alice Donovan from a Conway Walmart parking lot in 2002. This was after the duo also killed a woman in West Virginia.
The men escaped from a Kentucky jail in 2002 and embarked on a crime spree across Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Basham and Fulks were cellmates.
Fulks helped authorities in 2009 and led them to Donovan’s remains in Horry County.
Both men pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life in prison for abducting and killing 19-year-old Samantha Burns, a Marshall University student last seen in 2002 during their crime spree. Her body has never been found.
Brandon Council of North Carolina was also on death row after being convicted in the brutal deaths of two Conway bank tellers in 2017.
A federal jury sentenced Council to death for shooting and killing the employees during a robbery at the Conway CresCom bank.
