Why did feds drop charges in SC Irish Travelers $5M Texas insurance murder case?

Federal law officers in May quietly dropped murder-related charges against a North Augusta insurance agent as part of an investigation involving South Carolina’s Irish Travelers.

The dropped murder charges were related to five life insurance policies totaling $5 million that insurance agent Charles Mercier wrote for Anita Fox, a 69-year-old Irish Traveler, who was murdered in Texas in 2014, according to evidence in the case.

In a related case, South Carolina prosecutors also last week dropped murder-related charges against a Texas couple, Mark and Virginia Buckland, who were originally alleged to have taken part, along with Mercier, in a money-making scheme involving the expected payout in life insurance proceeds after Fox’s 2014 slaying. Fox was Virginia Buckland’s mother.

Those now-dismissed murder-related charges against the Bucklands and Mercier grew out of an ongoing FBI investigation looking into alleged fraud schemes inside the South Carolina Irish Traveler community, federal prosecutor Jim May said at the time of the Bucklands’ and Mercier’s indictment, in July 2018.

That original indictment charged the three with being part of a scheme “to defraud the insurance company to cause the death of the insured (Fox) by stabbing and bludgeoning, to make the defendants immediately eligible to collect the benefits of the policy.”

Irish Travelers is the name given to an estimated 2,500 people who live in the unincorporated community of Murphy Village in Aiken County near the Georgia-South Carolina border. Irish Traveler communities also are found in Texas and Tennessee.

Prosecutor May was back in court last week, telling U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs that further investigations done by the FBI, the Texas Department of Insurance and the Texas Rangers, as well as other developments in Texas, showed that neither the Bucklands or Mercier had anything to do with Fox’s slaying.

An investigation showed that the man believed to be Fox’s killer had died, and an accomplice is now serving a 14-year prison sentence in Texas. The Bucklands also agreed to polygraphs by the Texas Rangers that indicated they had nothing to do with Fox’s murder, May said.

Childs agreed and dismissed the murder-related charges against the Bucklands and Mercier on May 24.

Following the dismissals, Mercier and the Bucklands pleaded guilty to new charges against them asserting they had given the FBI false information as the FBI was investigating Fox’s murder, according to court records.

Childs sentenced the Bucklands and Mercier to five years of probation each for making false statements to the FBI. They could have received up to five years in prison.

As part of plea agreements signed on May 24, the Bucklands and Mercier also dropped any and all claims they might have had for any life insurance proceeds paid out for Fox’s death. Accounts reported in Texas newspapers said the money from Fox’s insurance policies went to her son.

Attorney Debbie Barbier, who represented Mark Buckland, and attorney RoseMary Parham, who represented Virginia Buckland, said in a joint statement on their clients’ behalf Wednesday they were pleased with the resolution in the case.

“Mark and Virginia have always steadfastly denied any involvement with the murder of Anita Fox,” they said. “The investigation confirmed that they played no role in this brutal and senseless crime. They remain devastated over the loss of their mother, but are grateful that they have publicly been exonerated in participating in her murder.”

Kathy Evatt, Mercier’s public defender attorney, declined comment.

In the last five years, more than 50 Irish Travelers from Murphy Village have been convicted of various white collar financial frauds, involving everything from falsely declaring themselves eligible for food stamps to falsifying credit records to buying expensive vehicles. The victims in the schemes were life insurers, financial firms, credit agencies, car dealerships and state and federal governments cheated out of millions of dollars.

Documented in testimony in numerous cases, a popular scheme of some Murphy Village Irish Travelers is to take out a life insurance policy, or multiple policies, on an elderly person for a large payoff amount upon the person’s death. Other Travelers are enlisted in the scheme, and they help pay the monthly premiums in hopes of an early death and a large payout, according to evidence in the cases.

In some cases, such life insurance schemes are legal.

However, those life insurance schemes can become illegal when people taking out a life insurance policy on an elderly person grossly inflate the elderly person’s assets. Ordinarily, life insurance policies have payout amounts that are in line with the person’s income and wealth.

The residents of Murphy Village are called “Travelers” because many of the men leave home for months at a time and travel the country, working various jobs and often running afoul of the law because of quickly done, substandard work, according to federal prosecutors.

This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 9:03 AM.