DRUGS LED TO SLAYINGS AT PANTRY, POLICE SAY

Cocaine led a Lexington couple and a teen-age accomplice into a web of
theft, coverup, triple homicide and suicide, authorities said Wednesday.
The triggerman, Michael McElyea, 29, was high on cocaine the morning he and
18-year-old Jason Robert Drew, a paid lookout, burst into a West Columbia
Pantry convenience store, said John Allard, spokesman for the Lexington
County Sheriff's Department.

Police believe the men went to the store June 24 because they needed drug
money, Allard said.

They also faked a robbery of The Pantry's night deposit about three weeks
earlier, according to the charges. That was for drug money, too, the
spokesman said.

McElyea's mother-in-law, Billie Jean Mefford, said she spent about two
weeks in the McElyea home recently and saw no signs of illegal drugs.

"I would bet my life that there was no drugs," Mefford said Wednesday after
her daughter, Leslie Dawn McElyea, and two other suspects made their first
courtroom appearances.

Leslie McElyea, married to Michael McElyea for seven years, also used
cocaine at her husband's insistence, Allard said. Drew, who had lived with
the McElyeas for several months, used drugs even before he met them, he said.

Drew's mother, Brenda Ponder, said Michael McElyea assured her there were
no drugs in his home. But Ponder said she was concerned that Michael
McElyea was a bad influence on her son.

In court, Drew's bail was postponed. A judge set $150,000 bail for Leslie
McElyea, and freed her father, William Spencer Medley, on $7,500 bail.

Medley, 58, is charged with accessory for burying some of the stolen money
in his back yard.

Leslie McElyea, 29, and a mother of three, is accused of helping plan The
Pantry robberies and of not quickly reporting what she knew about the three
homicides after they occurred. She also misled detectives, Allard said.

Store manager Charlotte Wolf, 59, and clerk Gene McLaughlin, 57, were shot
several times on June 24. Customer Glenda Sue Lukinoff, 48, died later of a
gunshot to the head. Michael McElyea had worked at The Pantry.

The families of Wolf and Lukinoff have hired Columbia lawyer Dick
Harpootlian. Harpootlian said in a telephone interview that he is examining
whether the store has any civil liability in the case.

Leslie McElyea's lawyer disputes that she had advance knowledge of the crimes.

"She knew nothing of what was going to happen," West Columbia attorney Bob
Marsella told the judge. "He involved her ... an hour before he went and
killed himself."

Billie Jean Mefford, Leslie McElyea's mother, said her daughter told her
she learned of the homicides when Michael McElyea placed a newspaper on her
lap.

Michael McElyea confessed to his wife and later put his confession on
audiotape, police said. It was in the truck where he put the murder weapon
to his head and pulled the trigger, detectives said.

Police also found a prescription drug and cocaine in the truck, Allard
said. The medication is being analyzed.

Mefford said her son-in-law was on antidepressants and the couple had been
fighting over his unemployment.

"Michael took the easy way out and left his family to pay for what he's
done," Mefford said, choking back tears.

Ponder, Drew's mother, said she doesn't believe her son is a drug-abusing,
cold-blooded killer as police portray him.

While he lived with family, "I know this boy did not do drugs," Ponder
said. "I always preached to my sons about drugs and alcohol."

But she worried her 18-year-old fell under the McElyeas' bad influence. "I
guess it's a mother's instinct, when you know something ain't right."
Ponder said she tried to talk her son out of moving in with the McElyeas.

Yet Michael McElyea's assurances that he wouldn't expose his children to
drugs made her feel better.

"I felt they would guide him," Ponder said. "Boy, they sure guided him,
didn't they?"

Ponder insists her son did not know McElyea planned to kill anyone.

"He did not pull no trigger and he did not go in that store knowing that
was going to happen," said Ponder, 47, of Wagener in Aiken County.

Under S.C. law, anyone who actively participates in a homicide can be
charged with murder even if they are not the primary offender.

In court, Drew didn't answer when the judge told him he could be put to
death in the multiple killings.

Prosecutor Donnie Myers has not announced whether he will seek Drew's
execution.

Allard said detectives believe that robbery was the primary motive. But
McElyea resented store manager Wolf because she questioned him about the
missing $12,000 from the June 2 theft, Allard said.

Shooting her was a "vendetta," Allard said. The others died because
McElyea, who had worked at the store, could leave no witnesses, Allard said.

Until this week, police said, McElyea acted alone.

But the bizarre case became even more complex Monday when detectives
accused Drew, Leslie McElyea and Medley.

One of Medley's daughters, Rhonda Stratton, 23, said he buried the money
only to help Leslie McElyea.

"He did not know about the murders until he saw it on television," Stratton
said. "My father was trying to protect my sister like any other father
would do.

"We're very sorry for their loss," she said of the Wolf, Lukinoff and
McLaughlin families. "But we're all victims in this."