Arrest made in brutal killing of minister | The State

The grown children of a slain Columbia minister wept Friday at news that a suspect had been arrested in the killing of their 87-year-old father, who was attacked last year in his Greenview community home.

Frankie Lee McGee, a 44-year-old Kershaw County resident, faces murder and first-degree burglary charges in the beating death of the Rev. Tryon Eichelberger, authorities announced Friday.

Eichelberger died last July, nearly three months after police found him lying on his kitchen floor with a large head wound. He had been beaten with a 6-pound metal tool.

Investigators identified McGee, a convicted burglar with an extensive criminal record, as the suspect by using special DNA tests that linked him to the crime scene on Isaac Street in north Columbia, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.

After a news conference Friday at the Columbia Police Department, family members said they never gave up hope police would find a suspect. But they acknowledged that they had been plagued by uncertainty for nearly a year.

Eichelberger's daughter, Mary E. Johnson, dabbed at her eyes and explained the relief her family felt. Four of Eichelberger's seven living children attended Friday's news conference.

"It means a lot. A lot of pressure has been taken off this family," Johnson said, adding that she believed God helped police find and arrest a suspect. "He was the one who gave them the wisdom to bring all this together."

Her older brother, Evans Eichelberger, 66, said he looked forward to a bond hearing Tuesday for McGee in Richland County.

"I'm ready to break down right now," said Eichelberger, his voice husky and cracking. "Tuesday, when they bring him to the bond hearing, I get to see him. That will help me in a lot of ways."

Prosecutors could seek the death penalty for McGee, but deputy Richland County solicitor John Meadors said that still has to be determined.

Eichelberger was well-known in north Columbia for his role as a pastor and a friend to the Greenview community. He was the minister at Cedar Creek AME Church for years, before retiring and taking on a new ministry called the Trinity House of Help and Mercy. Through that ministry, he would give food and money to people who needed help. He was also well-known as a singer and was a principal in the Blue Ribbon cab company.

His passions included a large backyard garden, the vegetables of which he shared with the Greenview neighborhood. The night he was attacked, Eichelberger was expecting a visitor who needed money, his family has said.

Johnson praised local police and members of the Greenview community for their support during the family's difficult time the past year. She said community members helped raise money for a reward to try to find the killer.

Asked what she thought her father would say Friday, Johnson said he was at peace with himself in heaven, "preaching and singing."

Columbia Police Chief Tandy Carter declined to provide details surrounding Eichelberger's death, including a motive for the killing. It wasn't known Friday if the minister's killer forced his way into Eichelberger's home, although signs indicated initially that the door had been forced open.

Meanwhile, family members said they did not know McGee, who officials said was a construction worker.

McGee was actually in a prison cell when he was identified as a suspect in Eichelberger's murder. A court had revoked probation for McGee after his arrest last September by Columbia police on burglary charges, Carter said.

But investigators had no reason to suspect McGee until they redoubled their efforts recently and found DNA evidence, Lott said.

At the Columbia Police Department's request, Richland County's crime laboratory conducted tests not normally done to extract DNA that proved crucial in the arrest, Lott said. He declined to say what material at the scene contained DNA linked to McGee.

Because McGee had a criminal record and had been jailed on a previous burglary charge, investigators were able to make a match, the sheriff said.

"He wasn't a suspect at the time, he was nothing - then we get his DNA, and boom, that's the guy," said Lott, whose department is the only local law enforcement agency in South Carolina with its own lab. "Since this guy is on parole or probation for burglary, our state law allows his DNA to be taken and put in a database. So when we get the DNA profile from the evidence, that's put in the computer. Then it matches up."

Records show McGee has about a dozen convictions on burglary, robbery and similar charges, mostly in Richland and Kershaw counties. They include a conviction for strong-arm robbery in 1998 and convictions for grand larceny and burglary in 2007, according to the State Law Enforcement Division. Carter called McGee a "habitual thief."

Carter said McGee was being held Friday in Richland County's Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, awaiting Tuesday's bond hearing. He was transferred from Lee Correctional Institution to face the murder charge in Richland County.

Since DNA evidence was used to make the arrest, a $4,000 reward that had been offered may be donated to a college scholarship in Eichelberger's name.