Rudolph Tyner, a 24-year-old Black man, was killed inside South Carolina’s Central Correctional Institution on a Sunday afternoon in September 1982. Tyner was on death row for the 1978 robbery and shotgun murders of Bill and Myrtle Moon in their Murrells Inlet grocery store when another plot ended his life.

Tony Cimo, the son of Myrtle Moon, is reported to have arranged a murder-for-hire. Cimo recruited fellow inmate Donald Pee Wee Gaskins, who constructed a small explosive device disguised as a radio or intercom. On September 12, 1982, Gaskins allegedly instructed Tyner to hold the device to his ear at a set time and then detonated it from his cell; the blast killed Tyner instantly. The scheme led to arrests and convictions: Cimo was convicted and given an eight-year sentence and several other inmates pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Does anyone have more information about Tyner’s time on death row or contacts who might remember the prison events that September?