Posted on Tue, Dec. 02, 2003
Home intruder gets 325 years
Man given lengthy sentence after pleading guilty to robberies, ssaults, kidnapping
By RICK BRUNDRETT
Staff Writer
Intruder gets 325 years
When Cindy McLemore got home from the hospital that day close to Christmas last year, the undecorated birthday cake sat on her kitchen table, right where she had left it.
She had baked the cake for her 3-year-old nephew. But a stranger, John W. Hayward, had forever wiped out any happy memories of that day, McLemore said.
Hayward, 25, of Columbia, was sentenced Monday to a total of 325 years in prison after pleading guilty to a string of crimes last year in Lexington and Richland counties. His actions included a vicious attack at McLemore’s West Columbia home, witnessed by three of her six children.
Lexington County prosecutor Tav Swarat said Hayward’s 325-year sentence, which will be served consecutively, is unprecedented in his experience.
McLemore, 26, said she will never forget what happened last Dec. 23 at her home on Roman Way. She gave this account Monday to The State:
She had pulled the birthday cake out of the oven about 2 p.m. and went outside to tell her then- 3-year-old nephew, Hunter Sheibler, and three of her children — Kayla, 7; Christian, 6; and Timothy, 3 — to come inside while she decorated it. The children had been celebrating Hunter’s birthday outside.
Her three older children and her husband, Tim, were away at the time.
Cindy McLemore had just walked out into her yard where the four children were playing when a masked man armed with a handgun suddenly jumped over the fence and ordered them inside. A second masked intruder, also wielding a gun, met them in the kitchen.
“When I saw the one, I was in shock,” McLemore recalled. “When I saw the second one, I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to be dead.’”
The intruders told her they wanted her van and ordered her to go outside and start it. One of the intruders kept the four children at gunpoint on a couch.
After she started the van, the intruders ordered her and the children into a bedroom, then forced her to lie on her stomach on the bed while the children watched.
While one of the intruders tied her feet with a vacuum cord, Hayward threatened her crying nephew that he would “blow his brains out and kill his mother” if he did not shut up.
McLemore, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall, said after she pleaded with the intruders not to harm the children, the 6-foot-1, 225-pound Hayward grabbed her by her hair — pulling out a large chunk. He then began hitting and kicking her because she would not stay still long enough to allow him to tie her hands.
The intruders threatened to kill her and the children if they continued crying or pleading. Hayward told her they would come back and kill her if she called police.
She credited her daughter Kayla, the 7-year-old, with calming the intruders. But she said they “trashed” her house before stealing her van — and many of their Christmas presents.
Hayward used the van and a rifle stolen from the home to rob the First Citizens Bank on Platt Springs Road in West Columbia later that day, Lexington County prosecutor Tav Swarat said Monday. More than $14,000 was stolen in the heist, he said.
Hayward also was charged with the robbery of more than $100,000 from the South Carolina Bank and Trust branch on Assembly Street in Columbia in August 2002, Richland County prosecutor Dana Pellizzari said. In addition, he was charged with robbing a pizza delivery person of $30 on Decker Boulevard in November 2002, she said.
Hayward was scheduled to face trial Monday in Richland County on the Columbia bank robbery charge when he decided to plead guilty to the string of crimes, Pellizzari said.
Judge Reggie Lloyd
sentenced Hayward to a total of 325 years after he pleaded guilty to five counts of kidnapping, four counts of armed robbery, one count of assault and battery with intent to kill, and one count of criminal conspiracy.
Hayward’s public defender, Samuel Mokeba, could not be reached Monday for comment. When he entered the plea, Mokeba asked Lloyd to give Hayward a 30-year sentence.
Trials are pending for Hayward’s co-defendants, Kimjaro Presley, 21, and Frank McKenzie, 24, in the home invasion case, Swarat said. Presley was one of the armed intruders, while McKenzie acted as the getaway driver, he said.
McLemore said Hayward deserved the long sentence he received.
“I’m very grateful because he’ll never see the light of day,” she said. “Still, we didn’t have to go through what we went through.”
McLemore said her three children who witnessed the attack and her nephew have required counseling to deal with nightmares. She said she also has suffered nightmares and occasionally loses feeling in her arm because of the attack.
“Christmas is coming up,” she said. “But it’s hard to concentrate on the joy of Christmas when that anniversary is coming up.”
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Okay, so I probably will be the lone voice on this one, but I think this is a bit excessive. I am in NO WAY trivializing his crime(s), but there was no one that was raped or murdered in this scenario. I've heard of serial murderers that have gotten less time than this.
Is it just me?
