3 found dead in ‘brutal’ crime scene inside SC home

Three people were found dead inside a Spartanburg County home in what the sheriff described to one media outlet as a “brutal” scene.

Deputies responded to a home on the 600 block of Landrum Mill Road in Landrum on Saturday morning, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. There, they found the bodies of 23-year-old Nathan Poffenberger, 59-year-old Francis Delancey Richards and Fred Richardson.

Landrum is located just off Interstate 26 near the North Carolina state line.

“The circumstances surrounding their deaths is still under investigation,” the sheriff’s office said. “It is not known, at this time, whether or not this is an isolated incident.”

Officials have not released the cause of death for the three victims, but the Spartanburg County coroner described the deaths as “violent,” WSPA-TV reports.

“It was brutal,” Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said, according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. “It was a bad crime scene. They were all found in the living room.”

Poffenberger went to the Richards’ home Friday night and did not return, the coroner told FOX Carolina in Greenville. His father went to the home Saturday to find him and, through a window, saw someone lying on the floor.

The man forced way into the home and found his son and the two other victims, the station reported.

Investigators are asking anyone who saw anything suspicious around Landrum Mill Road between 7 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Saturday to contact the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.

This story was originally published January 21, 2018 at 11:25 AM with the headline "3 found dead in ‘brutal’ crime scene inside SC home."