Murders South Carolina

As a barber in this small community--and before that a mail carrier for 21 years--Modest Keenan likes to say he knows everybody in Union. So when he stopped in at a convenience store almost two weeks ago and the clerk showed him a sketch of a man accused of kidnaping two little boys, Keenan could say with authority: "This doesn't look like anybody in Union." He immediately suspected a hoax.

A man sentenced to death for the murder of a pizza deliveryman in Glendale will be extradited to stand trial for two killings in South Carolina. Attorney Leon Litwin said the California Supreme Court's approval of the extradition means Mitchell Sims can be sent to South Carolina immediately. Gov. George Deukmejian already has approved the extradition. Sims, 28, was sentenced to death for the December, 1985, murder of a Domino's Pizza deliveryman. Two Domino's employees were killed in Hanahan, S.

A jury brushed aside contentions of mental illness Saturday and found a 23-year-old South Carolina woman guilty of first-degree murder in the drowning deaths of her two sons. The jury reached the verdict after 2 1/2 hours of deliberations, rejecting the defense's contentions that Susan Smith was depressed and suicidal on the night of the deaths and did not intend to kill her sons, Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, who died while strapped into their car seats.

A woman identified as the man wanted for a 1979 slaying in South Carolina denied Thursday that she is the suspect as a judge ordered a new fingerprint comparison to settle the issue. Los Angeles Municipal Judge Jacob Adajain ordered the tests after Valerie Nicole Taylor's lawyer asked for them. The lawyer, Walter Krauss, said Taylor was once known as Freddie Lee Turner--the name of the suspect in the shooting death in the small town of Gaffney, S.C., 17 years ago.

A man who had stabbed, shot or drowned 13 people, out of racial hatred or because he disapproved of their drinking or drug-taking, was executed Friday for killing a fellow Death Row inmate with a bomb. Donald Gaskins, 58, walked unaided into the death chamber at a South Carolina prison and gave a thumbs-up sign to his crying attorney before being put to death in the electric chair. He was pronounced dead at 1:10 a.m.

A prosecutor will seek the death penalty against the woman who allegedly drowned her two little boys, then claimed they were taken by a carjacker, her lawyer said Sunday. Susan V. Smith is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex. For nine days she maintained that a carjacker took her car and her boys on Oct. 25. She and her estranged husband, David, made televised pleas for their return.

The police finally figured out where to find Freddy Lee Turner. But when they went to arrest him, they put the handcuffs on Valerie Nicole Taylor. Ms. Taylor, arrested in Los Angeles last week, has been identified from fingerprints as Mr. Turner--the man wanted for 17 years in a South Carolina murder. Burbank police said they believe the suspect, who was known as a transvestite, had a sex change operation some time after the killing.

Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons last fall and then, for a time, persuaded the nation that they had been kidnaped, was sentenced to life in prison Friday. Smith has said repeatedly since her arrest that she wanted to join 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex in death. But after deliberating 2 1/2 hours, a nine-man, three-woman jury meted out what some contend may be a harsher punishment--a lifetime to contemplate her crime.

The grieving continued in the NBA with the mysterious death of Michael Jordan's father, James Jordan. As details of the death surfaced Friday, Michael Jordan's Chicago Bull teammates, club officials and others associated with perhaps the game's greatest player expressed shock and grief over the loss of a man who was not only close to his son, but to an entire organization.