A Haunted House, a Body, and a Mysterious Fire

This story sounds like it’s right out of the mind of a horror or crime writer. Some of the facts in the case almost feel as if they are fiction simply because they are so strange. It truly is the sort of thing you read about or see in a crime drama.

The Haunted House

In January of 2021, a group of eight people riding four-wheelers came across an abandoned home that had a reputation in the area of Norway, SC for being haunted. It’s hard to resist the allure of a potentially haunted house, so they stopped at the house and decided to go inside to explore. There were eight of them after all, so they weren’t overly concerned with anything negative happening.

The Body

When they were exploring the abandoned property, they found a deep freezer located on the back porch. One of the men decided to open up the freezer. Inside, he made a terrible discovery. The scent of rotting meat wafted out of the freezer and in the brief look he got inside, he saw what he thought was a body wearing blue jeans and socks.

As you can imagine, this changed the mood of the group quickly. The exploration stopped and the police were called to start an investigation. The body was removed from the home, but because of the state, they figured that it could take them some time to figure out the identity of the person.

Ronald Phillips, the former owner of the house, said that the house has always had a bad reputation in the community. He lived in the home for 10 years before moving and said that eventually, people started to bust out the windows and get into the house. It was “known that there’s a few voices in that house”, he said, but it’s not entirely clear what that means.

After the discovery of the body, Phillips was brought in for questioning but was soon released. He didn’t still own the home and was not suspected of being the murderer.

The Fire

However, just two days after the discovery of the body, local firefighters received a call and responded to a fire happening at the same abandoned property. The home burned down entirely. Police said they believed the fire was suspicious but did not have any leads on who may have set the fire. The place was leveled according to the former owner.

If the fire was set by someone, might they have discovered that the body was found and then wanted to burn the place to remove any other potential evidence?

Identification

It took some time, but the police were able to identify the badly decomposing body in the freezer. It was a 24-year-old man named Robert Fuller, who they determine was murdered and then placed into the freezer. It’s possible that whoever killed Fuller did not think that anyone would find the body for quite a while on the abandoned property.

A person of interest, Kendall Tyron Dickson, was sought in the case by the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Ravenell said they wanted to talk with him as he may have information related to the case. His name was not added as a person of interest until June of 2021.

At this time, no other information about the case can be found. This is one of the only things about the case that makes it not feel like a crime drama. With those shows, everything is neatly wrapped up at the end. In real-life, cases like this could stay unsolved forever.