Gregory L. Becknell was 18 when he was abducted and murdered near Columbia, South Carolina, in September 1976. A Columbia High School graduate planning to train as a diesel mechanic, he supported those plans by delivering surgical supplies and was remembered by his parents as kind and trouble-free.

On September 20, 1976, two days after being paroled from a federal prison, John Edward Swindler abducted Becknell and Becknell’s 18-year-old friend Dorothy Ann Rhodes. The pair were taken to a remote area and both were shot in the head. Becknell was found nude, and Swindler later admitted to sexually assaulting him. A jury convicted Swindler of the kidnappings and murders in under three hours; he received four consecutive life sentences in South Carolina.

Swindler was later tried and convicted in Arkansas for the killing of a police officer and was executed in 1990 for that crime. Did anyone who knew Gregory or Dorothy in Columbia in 1976 ever report suspicious persons or vehicles in the days before September 20?