Police reveal details in Pageland murder-suicide

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, N.C. — "I was relieved when I heard that," she said. "I can't tell you what else I really felt." Theresa Livingston said after hearing that the body of her sister's boyfriend had been found.

Ann Bennett, 51, was last seen Monday night after arguing with her boyfriend, William Lazar Grant, 49.

On Monday, Pageland police and sheriff's deputies told reporters that Grant killed Bennett, sometime after 11 p.m. on Aug. 15., likely beat her death, then buried her in the woods about 1 mile from his mother's home near Guess Road.

Sheriff's deputies searched for three days but it was a mail carrier who saw buzzards and reported smelling something, that proved to be the tip they needed to find her.
 
Even the sheriff became emotional talking about a crime that's saddened an entire town.
 
"We are so sorry for the family of Miss Ann. She was a great lady and this whole community mourns the loss," Sheriff Jay Brooks said.
 
Brooks said police had video of Grant washing his car, cleaning his shoes and changing his clothes at a car wash, at 3 a.m. after the killing.
 
On Saturday, a family out boating discovered his body caught in stumps and limbs on the bank of the Pee Dee River.  
 
His hands were tied in front of him, with weed eater wire, and a piece of a shoelace.  
 
Deputies said he did that himself.  
 
Family members told police that Grant was a good swimmer and investigators believe he tied his own hands to make sure he'd drown.  
 
Two South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents and a medical examiner went over all the evidence.
 
"He tied his left hand and then did a slip knot on the other end, and then stuck his hand through the slip knot and pulled it tight," Brooks said.  "He had no other injuries.  No gunshot wounds or stab wounds.  Nothing at all was wrong with them, other than the fact that he drowned."
 
Grant was last seen alive on Thursday.  Pageland police Chief Craig Greenlee said they heard relatives say that he would end his life.
 
"He had made mention to some of his family members that he didn't do this, and that he should just kill himself," Greenlee said.
 
The loss is devastating for two families.  Dewayne Covington is Grant's nephew and told Channel 9 everything seemed OK with his uncle, who he called a humble man.
 
"I thought it was all good, but you can be fooled sometimes.  Just a shock," he said.
 
Investigators said they have no information to suggest that anyone helped Grant commit the crime, but they are still investigating that part of it.
 
Bennett will be remembered and celebrated at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Pageland Community Center.  Burial details have not been announced.

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