After years of hate, brother of Midlands murder victim forgave the killer. Here’s why
For years, Scott Farwell was consumed with “hate” and “rage” for a man who killed his younger brother in 2002 — a man Farwell initially wanted the state to execute.
But more than two decades later, he told a judge on Monday that he’s relinquished that hate in place of forgiveness. He argued against a death sentence in favor of life in prison.
The killer, Quincy Allen, was convicted in 2002 of brutally murdering Jedediah Harr — Farwell’s brother — and a woman, Dale Hall, in Richland County. Allen later killed two more people in North Carolina.
“It has been 22 years of missed birthdays, 22 years of missed holidays, family reunions, and not seeing what Jed was going to bring to this world,” Farwell said. “He had dreams too, just like all of us do. He was going to join the Coast Guard.”
On Monday, Allen accepted a sentencing agreement before Judge Debra McCaslin in Lexington, where he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole with no opportunity for any type of post conviction relief.
The sentence follows a federal appeals court overturning Allen’s 2005 death sentence in 2022, which left 5th Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson with a choice: re-try the sentencing phase of Allen’s trial to try to resecure the death penalty or settle with a life sentence. Gipson chose the latter.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to vacate Allen’s death sentence was based on the trial judge’s failure to “consider” all favorable evidence for him in the case, namely Allen’s abusive childhood and his resulting mental illness.
“I believe in my heart that he was controlling his actions,” Farwell said. “I know men with worse upbringings that were great soldiers and even better men. They just chose the right path. They didn’t choose to do something terrible.”
Gipson’s decision to not re-seek the death penalty, which he and Deputy Solicitor Dan Goldberg said was in accord with the wishes of the victims’ families, prompted Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott to express disappointment.
Last week, Lott sent an email to Gipson, Goldberg and other attorneys connected with Allen’s case, saying, in part, “Quincy Allen is a cold-blooded killer of four victims ... any other deaths/injuries/crimes committed by him will be the result of your decision.”
Allen offered remarks of remorse before McCaslin, saying he was sorry for taking the lives of Dale and Harr, and “never intended to hurt anyone, but was in a bad place” mentally.
Two of the victims’ nearest relatives offered statements before McCaslin during Monday’s hearing, including Farwell and Bernard Presley, who is Hall’s son. Presley wasn’t in court, but his remarks were delivered through Goldberg.
“It was his wish that as long as the defendant was going to die in prison, to put it bluntly, that he was fine with a life sentence (for Allen),” Goldberg said of Presley. Presley “said his faith had allowed him to move on.”
Goldberg added that Presley’s absence was due in large part to the family having “other relatives who’ve passed away and that they were not emotionally able to be present in the courtroom.”
Gipson acknowledged Lott’s concerns before McCaslin and said he, too, felt that the death penalty was appropriate for Gipson. But it was the feelings and wishes of the victims’ families that controlled his decision, he said.
“Do the feelings of (Lott), the attorney general or my feelings outweigh the feelings of two families who’ve been hurt by the actions of Quincy Allen for the past 22 years?” Gibson said. “The answer to that question is no.”
Allen shot and killed Hale, a woman he met on Two Notch Road, with a shotgun near I-77 in Columbia. He then doused her body with gasoline and set it on fire. A month after that killing, Allen ⏤ again using a shotgun ⏤ shot and killed Harr, a bystander in an argument Allen had with others outside the Texas Roadhouse Grill on Two Notch Road.
“The kid was kind, funny, and simple minded in the sense that he’d help anybody, and he just about always had a smile on his face even in the worst times,” Farwell said of his brother, Harr.
Farwell, who traveled from Ohio to attend Monday’s hearings, said something “changed” in him in 2009 that led him to embrace forgiveness for the first time in his life.
“I was sitting at a post office in my car listening to a an interview with the Alabama State Penitentiary warden,” Farwell said. “He talked about how he liked to spend the last two weeks of a death row inmate’s life with them, talking and praying. He talked about one inmate in particular, who was the meanest, scariest and toughest inmate he’d ever met. And the inmate (during the time of his execution) asked to hold the warden’s hand.”
Farwell said the interview gave him perspective that not everyone on death row is “bad.”
“They’re just men like me with emotions, and they just chose to do horrific things,” Farwell said. “Those bad men now were just men that chose wrong, terribly wrong.”
Prior to the 4th Circuit overturning Allen’s sentence, the S.C. Supreme Court unanimously upheld his death sentence in 2009, saying the sentence was “proper” and supported by ample aggravating circumstances that made him eligible for the death penalty.
“Allen gave statements to police outlining the details of his crimes,” the Supreme Court noted. “He told police he began killing people because an inmate in federal prison, where Allen spent time for stealing a vehicle, had told him he could get him a job as a Mafia hit man.”
Before starting his death spree, Allen used a homeless man, James White, 51 ⏤ who was sitting on a bench in Finlay Park in downtown Columbia ⏤ for target practice. Allen shot him twice to learn how to use his shotgun, the high court noted.
“I forgave Quincy,” Farwell said. “Up until (2009) I’d never forgiven a soul in my entire life. It was like wearing a tank as a vest. When I took that off, I was free to breath, and that hate (for Allen) went away. He no longer had space in my head, and I didn’t think about it again.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2024 at 5:12 PM.
