TED CLIFFORD

In January 2024, a partial skeleton was found in a sandpit in Elgin, South Carolina. The grim discovery was the answer to an over decade-long mystery: what happened to Adrianna Laster?

The last time anyone had seen Laster was as she walked to church on Labor Day weekend, 2011. For the next 13 years, suspicion swirled around her partner, Freddie Grant.

Warrants described Grant as being abusive towards Laster. She told people she thought Grant might kill her, according to one document. Attention on her disappearance was renewed in 2012 when Grant became the prime suspect in the disappearance of 15-year-old Gabrielle Swainson.

Grant would eventually confess to killing Swainson and as part of a deal, he led investigators to where he buried Swainson’s body in the woods near his home in Elgin. Thirteen years later, Laster would be found just a few miles away.

Days after the discovery of Laster’s remains, Grant, who was serving a 30-year sentence for killing Swainson, was charged with Laster’s murder.

Nearly two years later, Grant remains incarcerated in the South Carolina Department of Corrections while his new legal case progresses.

After Grant was charged with Laster’s death in 2024, he was transferred from the medium-security MacDougal Correctional Institution to the Broad River Correctional Institution, a maximum security facility.

Grant’s attorney, Tivis Sutherland IV declined to comment for this story. No trial date or upcoming court appearances have been scheduled for Grant.

The seemingly slow progress of the case can be explained by the fact that Grant is already serving a multi-decade sentence, said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

“There’s no rush to it because he’s not going anywhere,” said Lott, who led the search for Swainson. “He’s not out on the street and there’s no chance he’s committing any other crimes. The system is moving forward like it’s supposed to.”

Who is

Freddie Grant?

Following Swainson’s disappearance and murder, Lott described Grant as a “boogeyman.”

From 1988 to 1992, Grant racked up multiple criminal charges, including aggravated battery on a spouse, disorderly conduct and cocaine trafficking. His first wife, Juanita Jackson, told The State that Grant was physically abusive to her over the course of their marriage.

For many years, Grant split his time between South Carolina and Florida, where he met Laster. She came to live with Grant at his home in Elgin in 2009. Grant was known as a “bold” individual who even once ran for city council.

In the year leading up to Laster’s disappearance, warrants sworn out by law enforcement officers described Grant “dragging” Laster, causing her to fall and cut her head open on a table and once knocking her unconscious with a punch to her head.

Laster was reported missing in 2012, just months before Grant abducted Swainson. The teenager’s abduction in the middle of the night and the multi-agency manhunt drew national media attention to Columbia. Investigators soon honed in on Grant following Swainson’s disappearance. Grant had a key to Swainson’s home that he had lied about returning and investigators found blood on a scrap of duct tape in his home.

Columbia’s Ridge View High School, where Swainson was a student, still honors her memory annually with its “Cuts for Gabbiee” event. A back-to-school tradition, it brings together local barbers to offer free haircuts and help raise money.

“People still remember her,” Lott said.

Caption:

File Photo kkfoster@thestate.com

Freddie Grant in a 2013 photo when he pleaded guilty to the murder of Gabrielle Swainson