1947 unsolved murder stumps former sheriff

The blackberry patch murder was never solved. B.B. Brockman worked on the case during his 16 years as sheriff of Spartanburg County, but to this day it still remains a mystery.Brockman In 1988, that case still bothers the 91-year-old man, who served four consecutive terms - longer than any other Spartanburg County sheriff this century. Brockman cleared some 3,400 criminal cases and every murder except two during his 16 years in office, he said. One of those two cases was the brutal rape and murder of Myrtle Everett, a 13-year-old girl, in a blackberry patch near Saxon on July 23, 1947. "She and her mother had gathered two bucketfuls. The girl left with a bucketful to carry to a friend in Saxon. She only walked three-quarters of a mile to get there," Brockman said. "The mother returned and found the child stuffed in the closet. She was almost suffocated. Everyone thought she would come around," he said, "but she went into shock and died before she was able to talk to anyone." "If you've got a hold of something or the other - some information, you just keep pinching, and it will get down to a fine finish," Brockman said, moving his hand as if he were polishing a fine piece of wood. "It never did in that case," he added. Brockman remembers finding the young girl severely beaten and stuffed in the tiny closet of an abandoned home in the patch. He remembers tracing her steps down a railroad track, over and over. This week he continued to struggle over the details. Brockman hates leaving a crime unsolved. His law enforcement career came almost as natural as chomping on the fat cigars that are his trademark. "I never have lit one. I just chew 'em. I don't know why," Brockman said. That's the same reason he gives for seeking the office of sheriff. All his friends worked for the city or county police, and when Sheriff Sam Henry ran for his third term, Brockman decided it was time. "I had a lot of good helpers," Brockman added. By helpers, Brockman means citizens - people who used to give him information on crimes. "I've had people come up behind me in a cemetery and tap me on the back. I didn't look around. I didn't want to see who it was," Brockman said. "They would whisper the information, and I passed it on to the right people." Brockman believes getting tips outweighs every other skill in police work. "You'd be surprised, the people that would come up and talk to me. I could use that and put it together with what I already had," he said. "That's the main thing - getting the information to clear crimes. "I told my police, `If you tell the name of someone who gives information leading to an arrest, I'll fire you. I'll fire you,"' he said firmly, pointing his cigar. The sheriff's department had only 13 men when Brockman took office, outgoing Sheriff Larry Smith said. Called rural police, one man was stationed at each of the townships, but that number increased to 37 by the time he left in 1961. Today, about 165 deputies serve in the department. "He was the best sheriff that I can ever recall in Spartanburg County. He was like a father to the men," Smith said. "When he got beat, it was like a member of his family had died." Brockman created the fingerprint division of the Sheriff's Department, got two-way radios in police cars and changed the car policy so deputies could drive county police cars, instead of their own, Brockman's son Carlisle said. When Brockman took office, state law dictated that the sheriff live in the jail. He and his wife, Mittie, occupied a two-story brick house adjoining the old-county jail, on the same site where the current jail sits. During the 12 years that the couple lived there, Brockman could get to the central communications center in less than a minute by unlocking the heavy, steel door in his home and walking through a tunnel. The sheriff even had a peephole in his bedroom to watch jail activity, Carlisle Brockman said. Brockman's men didn't have set hours. "They worked until we finished the case," he said, explaining that the deputies often had to work seven days a week. Murders were his biggest challenge. Brockman worked several big cases, including the Logue-Timmerman family feud and the Rocky Rothschild case. In the Rothschild case, a Greer house painter had been convicted twice and sentenced to die for the robbery and murder of a Jefferson, Ga., man, but Brockman got information that led him to Charles "Rocky" Rothschild, who finally admitted to the 1956 shooting death. The innocent Greer man was spared the electric chair. Several years before that, Brockman was instrumental in getting a confession in one of the state's most notorious murder cases, the Edgefield County feud between the Logues and the Timmermans. As deputy sheriff, Brockman worked with chief of county detectives O.L. Brady and Sheriff Sam Henry to connect Clarence Bagwell and a popular Spartanburg City policeman with one of the murders. Joe Frank Logue, who is believed to live in Cross Anchor, was the policeman who said his relatives pressured him to hire Bagwell to kill one of the Timmermans. Logue is the only survivor of the feud in which eight people died, including three by the electric chair. Those cases loomed large in Brockman's 32 years with the Sheriff's Department. His right-hand man from the time he defeated Henry in 1945 was Brady, who later became chief of the State Law Enforcement Division. Together, the two cleared more cases than any other team in the state, Carlisle Brockman said. Brockman, who hired Sheriff Smith on Smith's 21st birthday, once figured out who a killer was because of a dry cleaning mark on a suit, he said. Two families had been hacked to death with an ax, and the murderer had changed into one of his victim's suits. Brockman located the murderer's clothes stuffed near railroad tracks, and discovered the mark. "I took the clothing to where it was purchased, and the store employee was able to remember who he was. I arrested him and got a confession," he recalled. Brockman arrested another murderer from a footprint. "He had a real good rate of solving crime," Smith said. "I've heard some of the old timers say he was one of the best detectives they'd ever seen, especially at interrogating a suspect and getting him to confess. "I don't believe there will ever be another like him," Smith added. Brockman's two sons both worked in law enforcement. Belton "Bunny" Brockman logged 39 years with the Spartanburg City Police Department. Carlisle Brockman served as a deputy sheriff, and when the records of all three men are totaled, they equal 104 years in law enforcement. The family tradition dates back to the 1300s, when Sir William Brockman and James Drake-Brockman both were sheriffs of Kent, England, family records show. Serving twice as president of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association, and once as the first vice president of the National Sheriff's Association, Brockman believes newly elected Republican Bill Coffey will do a good job. While he pays attention to current police work, Brockman can still explain minor details about cases that date back 40 years - especially the blackberry patch murder.