The Hit-and-Run Death of Davis McClendon

**Meredith Haney** (0:30)
It was my birthday. I remember, I was just sitting at the bar, and he sat down beside me, and we just talked the rest of the night.

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:39)
You were there the night she met Davis.

**Megan McGovern** (0:41)
I was, I was there that night.

**Anne-Marie Green** (0:43)
Did it seem like there was chemistry right off the bat?

**Megan McGovern** (0:45)
Immediately, I would, immediately.

**Meredith Haney** (0:48)
Davis, he was so kind, and him and his heart was huge.
We enjoyed each other so much. It was an amazing six months.

**Megan McGovern** (1:00)
Meredith, her and Davis, they would go on away weekends a lot. I liked him.
His smile was so contagious, and he's just such a sweet guy. I would have never expected this to happen, ever.

**Jack Swirling** (1:14)
Greenwood County 911

**Megan McGovern** (1:16)
What is the one person car wreck?

**SPEAKER_5** (1:18)
Okay, it was a car wreck, if somebody is hurt.

**Megan McGovern** (1:21)
I pull up right beside Davis' car, and he wasn't in his car. And that's when I noticed his airbags were out.
So then also, that's when I kind of started looking at the car more, and noticed that his front tire was smashed in. And I remember looking, and I noticed there's a body. Mary just started like screaming like, who is it? Who is it?

**Anne-Marie Green** (1:41)
And you look over, what do you think you were looking at?

**Meredith Haney** (1:46)
Davis.

**Megan McGovern** (1:48)
He was laying there, and his head was rested on the sock like a pillow. And he was shirtless, and his face was covered in blood.

**Anne-Marie Green** (1:56)
Was there anything about the scene that struck you as odd?

**Meredith Haney** (2:00)
Davis being all the way on the other side of the road, the car being wrecked, like none of that. I couldn't piece anything together.

**Megan McGovern** (2:08)
Davis' car was way over there, and his body was way down here. And I was like, well, how'd he end up down here?

**Anne-Marie Green** (2:13)
That's quite a distance to here.

**Megan McGovern** (2:16)
It is quite a distance.

**Ronnie Powell** (2:18)
Originally, it came out as a possible traffic accident, and then once officers arrived on scene, they realized it was more than that.

**John Meadors** (2:26)
A lot of people think it was an auto accident.

**Anne-Marie Green** (2:27)
Well, do it with.

**Jack Swirling** (2:29)
I do believe that this was an accident and not an intentional killing.

**John Meadors** (2:33)
It was a murder.

**Megan McGovern** (2:34)
I was in shock. I was like, it doesn't even make sense.

**Ronnie Powell** (2:37)
The photographs of the crime scene, the text messages from Davis' phone, the ring videos looking at everything and the totality of the case was very powerful.

**Zach Calhoun** (2:47)
How can any of this possibly happen?

**Meredith Haney** (2:51)
There are so many things missing from the story. And once I kind of get that out there, then I can close the chapter.

**Johnny Coates** (3:13)
And 1028 Whiskey Echo Victor 253

**Anne-Marie Green** (3:17)
It was May 7th, 2023, just after 1 a.m., when authorities responded to a reported road accident on a secluded, dead-end street in Greenwood, South Carolina.

**Patrick Durkin** (3:30)
Start roping this off, because this is going to be a crime scene.

**Anne-Marie Green** (3:33)
At the edge of the nearby woods, they would find 46-year-old Davis McClendon's body. But what they saw at first was on the road itself.
A shirt, a shoe, and a mangled sedan.

**Patrick Durkin** (3:46)
And there was significant damage to the fender.

**Anne-Marie Green** (3:49)
It was a BMW 5 Series, similar to this one, we're using to demonstrate the position of the vehicle that night. After first responders had locked everything down, Greenwood County Sheriff's Office investigator, Patrick Durkin, arrived to photograph the scene.

**Patrick Durkin** (4:07)
The front driver's side wheel was turned slightly.

**Anne-Marie Green** (4:11)
Whatever had transpired at this deserted crossroads, Durkin's job was to freeze it in time. First responders had thought Davis McClendon's injuries seemed consistent with having being hit by a vehicle, though no other vehicle relating to the collision was there. They'd found Davis' body about 50 feet away from the BMW, leading them to suspect he'd been outside his car when he was hit.

**Patrick Durkin** (4:39)
There was no rain or anything that would potentially wash anything away, so the main thing I focused on was the vehicle.

**Anne-Marie Green** (4:46)
Durkin says he noticed some strange damage to the BMW.

**Patrick Durkin** (4:51)
Usually when we would think of a normal fender bender, it would just kind of be pressed into it, and this was torn back like a tuna can in a sense.