SC judge to order list of accused Florence police killer’s assets to be drawn up
The state judge presiding over the death penalty case of accused Florence police killer Frederick Hopkins, Jr. will order a list of Hopkins’ assets to be drawn up to help determine whether he is eligible to get court-appointed lawyers.
Judge Eugene “Bubba” Griffith said Wednesday morning in an hour-long hearing in Florence that his order will ask Hopkins’ 30-year-old daughter, Kelly Hopkins, who has power of attorney for him, to draw up the list.
According to prosecution statements at the hearing, Hopkins’ assets include some 137 guns worth an estimated $62,000, a coin collection of undetermined worth and “two huge telescopes.”
The guns to be included on the list do not include the weapons allegedly used by Hopkins in the 2018 shooting spree in which he is accused of killing two law enforcement officers and wounding five others. He is charged with two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
The charges stem from what police described as an ambush situation that broke out on Oct. 3, 2018, when officers went to Hopkins’ home to investigate allegations his adult adopted son had sexually abused a minor child living in the home. As the officers approached the house, someone in the house began firing at them. The officers who died in what became a siege were Florence police Sgt. Terrance Carraway, 52, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, and Florence County sheriff’s department detective Farrah Turner, 36, a 12-year veteran.
Hopkins, 76, was in the courtroom Wednesday and spoke at the hearing, told the judge, “I don’t have anything — nothing.”
Hopkins said he does get a Social Security check each month, but its amount was not disclosed in the hearing.
“Whatever assets I had, the coins - they’re gone - everything,” Hopkins told the judge.
A Vietnam War veteran and disbarred lawyer, Hopkins was accompanied by his lawyer, Aimee Zmroczek, who has been working as Hopkins’ attorney pro bono, or not for pay, for more than a year. She asked Judge Griffith to allow her to drop her representation. Griffith granted the motion.
After the hearing, Zmroczek told a reporter that her request to leave the case was an effort to help the judge resolve the issue of whether Hopkins is eligible for court-appointed attorneys, who would be paid for their work. In death penalty cases, which are far more complex and time-consuming than just about all other criminal cases, state law requires that a defendant have two lawyers.
During the hearing, Zmroczek said that expenses in the average death penalty case in South Carolina exceed $400,000 for the defense. An initial estimate for defense expenses in the 2019 death penalty trial of Lexington County’s Tim Jones, who killed his five children, was more than $400,000, according to a report by WIS-TV of Columbia.
Hopkins is being held without bond at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County and was taken to Florence Wednesday for the hearing.
In June, Solicitor Ed Clements announced he would seek the death penalty against Hopkins, accused of killing two Florence police officers and shooting five others.
The shooting shook the state and became a national story as one of the worst police shootings of the decade. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department investigated the shootings at the request of Florence County authorities.
To seek the death penalty in South Carolina, a murder charge must entail one of 12 “aggravating circumstances.” One of the aggravating circumstances is that a police officer is killed.
Hopkins’ son, Seth Hopkins, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct with a minor in December and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A State newspaper reporter attended Wednesday’s hearing via a remote connection.
This story will be updated.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 12:36 PM.