Late on May 29, 1975, musicians and staff at Ye Olde Fireplace restaurant in Greenville, South Carolina, were victims of a robbery that ended in murder. Charlie Russo, a 64-year-old Caucasian musician, was shot once in the chest in the band room after two white male suspects entered the closed restaurant through a kitchen door. One suspect was described as about 5 feet 9 inches, in his twenties, with dark curly hair, wearing a blue and white bandana, a light brown floppy hat, a yellow and black T-shirt, and fingerless gloves. The other wore a red and white bandana, a brown floppy hat, a tan long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes, and carried a blue steel automatic pistol.

During the robbery the intruders struck and forced staff to the floor, forced the owner Charlie Grubbs and another person to open the safe, then fled in Grubbs’ Cadillac; the car was later found abandoned at a Howard Johnson Lodge. The murder weapon was reportedly recovered years later during a drug raid in Columbia, South Carolina, but no arrests have been announced and the case remains unsolved.

If anyone knew Charlie, worked at Ye Olde Fireplace, or remembers the late-May 1975 robbery, please share what you know.