Published Tuesday, May 06, 2008 4:10 PM
Updated Tuesday, May 06, 2008 4:33 PM

 

Former Deputy killed in Orangeburg

Howell’s career stops included Dorchester County


There is a certain kind of prisoner in a certain state of mind that no correctional officer wants to deal with alone.

This prisoner is filled with a desperate, nihilistic rage, but has no demands that can be met or negotiated – all he has is some crudely fashioned weapon, the desire to use it and nothing to lose.

These were the kind of prisoners that William Howell Jr., 46, from Cross, repeatedly dealt with during his time as a sergeant in the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Moncks Corner.

A big, husky man, he had the courage and strength to lead a pack of officers into the tight confines of a prison cell to subdue an unruly inmate armed with a shard of plastic. He was also a gifted communicator. On more than one occasion he stopped a fight before it started, and brought a man to his senses with a few well-chosen words.

On Saturday, May 3, Howell, a deputy with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, was shot and killed at approximately 1:30 a.m. while providing an escort to a woman who was retrieving her belongings from her estranged husband’s home, according to Tom Brown, Public Information Officer with the sheriff’s office.  According to Brown, Howell was in the front yard when he was shot – he never had the chance to either unholster his own weapon or convince the shooter to put his gun down, an action that would have saved both their lives.

The man whom police believed killed Howell, 20-year-old Derrick Buras, was struck by a car driven by his wife, and apparently stumbled a half-mile before he collapsed in a ditch and died, Brown said.

A neighbor was also hit by the car and was treated and released.

Buras was out of jail on bond. He had been charged with assault and battery with intent to kill in June of last year, but the case had yet to go to trial, according to SLED records.

The Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office had responded to domestic violence incidents involving Buras on two occasions, once in December 2007 and again in January of this year, according to Brown.

SLED is investigating the incident.

Cpt. Barry Currie, director of the Hill-Finklea Detention Center, heard about Howell’s death on Saturday morning, and since then has been flooded by memories of his former partner and friend, a man he regards as a loving family man who was tough, but never lost his sense of humor or humanity during the years he worked in the jail and on patrol.

  The two were roommates at the policy academy in 1995. Currie was going back to the force after a few years away and Howell, then a corrections officer, was set to become a sworn deputy.

“He was excited … it was all he ever wanted,” Currie said.

They became good friends. If Howell started to lag behind during the cadets’ early morning runs, Currie would tell him to “keep moving,” and vice-versa. In the evenings, they quizzed each other until they grew tired. Currie would sleep first so he wouldn’t be kept up by the gospel music blaring from Howell’s headphones.

On weekends, Currie would drop Howell off at his home in Cross, and watch as three boys ran out the front door to greet their father.

“He’d been gone all week, they were young back then, he’d be getting out of the car and they’d be jumping all over him,” Currie said.

Howell saw the academy as a way to change his life in more ways that one – if he made it through, he planned to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Michelle.

“If I pass this academy, I’m going to ask her to marry me,” he told Currie.

“What if you don’t make it, does that mean it’s off?” Currie joked in reply.

Both men passed the academy, and when Howell proposed to Michelle, she said yes. They remained married until the day he died.

Howell continued to work at the detention center for another five years, until 2000. He then worked for the Moncks Corner Police Department, and also had periods with the S.C. Correctional Department, the Jamestown Police Department and the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office before he started with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office three years ago.

“He was an entertainer — a very talented musician,” Dorchester County Ray Nash said, recalling a gathering of deputies where Howell jumped on a piano and “was just phenomenal.”

Howell worked in court security and as a detention officer while in Dorchester County, Nash said.

Currie believes that Howell intended to return to working in a detention center.

On Sunday, the captain could picture his former sergeant leaning back in an office chair as he eyed an inmate, one who tried to “run a con” or who asked for one favor too many.

“Hey man, you’re outta gas,” he would say in his high-pitched voice. The inmate would always get the message – Howell could be a generous and funny man, but he would not be pushed around.

When a prisoner needed to be restrained, Currie and Howell were always called to the scene. Before they opened the cell door, the two always had a plan in case the man came rushing out at them.

“I can’t count the times where me and him, shoulder to shoulder, had to go in there to disarm somebody,” Currie said. “You’re fighting for your life, basically, because this person is trying to kill you.”

Howell wanted to try “being on the road” and he told Currie that the part of rural Orangeburg where he worked was usually quiet, but the number of people with guns and short tempers made him nervous.

“Man, they’re ready to kill somebody over some little nothing,” he said

When they were in the academy together, Howell and Currie went to a law enforcement museum in Columbia that has a wall with a list of all the officers in South Carolina that have been killed in the line of duty.  The exhibit left an impression on Howell, and he told Currie that he hoped his name would never be added to the list.

Howell, like any other officer, knew the risks inherent to his job, but he still put his badge on every morning. He leaves behind a wife and three sons. Brown said that Howell’s two younger sons, 17 and 18, still live at home, while the oldest is stationed with the military in Alaska. Authorities are making arrangements for him to return for the funeral.

On Sunday, Currie leaned back in his seat inside his office at the detention center – on the desk in front of him was his class photo from the academy, with he and Howell seated together in the front row. They sweated together, trained together, studied together and fought together – and now when the time comes, Currie will join officers from across the Lowcountry as they pay their final tributes to a man who died before his time, in a line of work with risks they all know too well.

“He was tough when he needed to be tough,” Currie remembered. “But he always had a smile on his face.”