MANNING, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) -- When I drove up to the Clarendon County Courthouse on August 28, 2025, I noticed an unmarked van with a South Carolina state government license plate and locks on the sliding door.
A prison guard slid the door open, and a long leg covered in bright orange swung out, and an orange pair of rubber prison shoes hit the asphalt.
The chains around the man's legs sounded like Christmas bells jingling as the six-foot-something prisoner stood up and walked toward the back door of the courthouse.
Michael Pearson walks into the Clarendon County Courthouse wearing his prison orange on August 28, 2025, where he hoped a circuit court judge would grant him a new trial and set him free on bond. Pearson was convicted of a brutal armed robbery in May 2010, but a confession from his codefendant exonerated him. It would take the solicitor another 30 months to ask the court to grant Pearson a new trial. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)When he stepped up on the sidewalk and looked my way, it was Michael Pearson. I've never met him before, but I recognized him from his South Carolina Department of Corrections mugshot.
The guard unchained Pearson, and a Clarendon County deputy walked him into the courthouse.
I've watched dozens of prisoners walk into courthouses in my journalism career. There was something different about this one. Pearson didn't have the look of dread on his face. Not one sign of worry. He was wearing a smile, laughing with the guards, and he wasn't handcuffed.
I've never seen a man in prison orange so jolly.
Probably because Pearson knew he was hours away from a judge's decision that could grant him a new trial and his first shot at freedom since he was arrested in May 2010.
In the 15 years since Pearson was booked into the county jail, he was walking back into the same courtroom where a judge handed him a 60-year prison sentence for crimes the State of South Carolina would later find out he really didn't commit.
This original booking sheet shows the day Clarendon County Sheriff's Office investigators arrested Michael Pearson and charged him in the Edward "Slick" Gibbons ambush. Pearson had a red lighter and a $5 bill on him when he was booked into the county jail. He'd spend the next 15 years as property of the State of South Carolina for a crime he didn't commit. (Source: Clarendon County Sheriff's Office)Days after the jury convicted Michael "Foots" Pearson of robbing, kidnapping, and beating an elderly man in May 2012, he was sitting inside the state corrections' Kirkland Reception and Evaluation, known as R&E, in Columbia, trying to figure out how he ended up charged, tried, and convicted. And how he'd spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn't do.
Pearson was charged in May 2010 with first-degree burglary, attempted murder, armed robbery, grand larceny, kidnapping, and possessing a gun after a prominent Clarendon County businessman Edward "Slick" Gibbons was ambushed inside his garage on May 15, 2010.
Appellate records show Clarendon County Sheriff's Captain Kenneth Clark identified Pearson as a suspect after a confidential informant told Clark that days after the Gibbons ambush, Pearson and two other men were "spending a lot of money."
The sheriff's investigator asked Sumter Police Department's fingerprint analyst, Marie Hodge, to run Pearson and the two other men's fingerprints through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, known as AFIS. AFIS is a nationwide computer database that compares fingerprints from crime scene to known matches stored inside the government database.
None of the fingerprints Sumter PD ran through the computer program matched any of the prints lifted from the Gibbons ambush crime scene.
This letter detailing the results of fingerprint examinations was included as an exhibit in the trial of two men convicted of ambushing Edward "Slick" Gibbons inside his garage in 2010. Sumter Police Department AFIS Examiner, Marie Hodge, entered Michael Pearson's fingerprint into the nationwide fingerprint database and found "negative results." However, Hodge testified she visually compared Pearson's fingerprint to a print from the crime scene and confirmed it belonged to Pearson. (Source: Clarendon County Sheriff's Office)Once the computer failed to match Pearson's prints, Hodge got a fingerprint card of Michael Pearson's ink-rolled fingerprints and visually compared his known prints to latent prints lifted from the scene.
Hodge testified that Pearson's right thumbprint matched a single print lifted from the rear of Gibbons' El Camino, which the three perpetrators stole and used as a getaway car following the ambush. Using that evidence, Investigator Clark got arrest warrants for Pearson. He was booked into the Clarendon County jail on May 20, 2010.
Investigators submitted other pieces of evidence to the S.C. Law Enforcement Division for DNA testing. On July 20, 2010, investigators arrested Victor Weldon and charged him with the same crimes as Pearson.
This collection of photographs shows where Clarendon County Sheriff's investigators dusted for and located fingerprints used in the prosecution of Michael Pearson and Victor Weldon. The fingerprint a Sumter Police Department analyst visually compared from the crime scene and claimed to have matched to Pearson is included. (Source: Clarendon County Sheriff's Office)A DNA swab taken from the duct tape used to tie Gibbons up matched Victor Weldon. Case records show investigators had no other suspects.
In May 2012, Third Circuit Solicitor Chip Finney took Pearson and Weldon to trial together. The court did not sever the trials, and Pearson had to bear the brunt of the weight of the biological evidence Finney had on Weldon. The only piece of evidence tying Pearson to the crime scene was a single fingerprint, the testimony from the Sumter PD analyst that it belonged to Michael Pearson's right thumb.
The Sumter Police Department has a wall dedicated to Marie Hodge, the fingerprint analyst who testified at Michael Pearson's trial that she visually compared Pearson's known prints to prints taken from the scene and confirmed his right thumb print matched a single print on the getaway car. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)It took the Clarendon County jury just 20 minutes to convict Pearson and Weldon. Judge R. Ferrell Cothran, Jr., sentenced the men to 60 years in state prison.
Within days, Pearson and Weldon were in R&E, where they'd spend the first few weeks of their six-decade sentence before SCDC assigned them to their permanent prisons somewhere in the state.
PEARSON V. SC ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE
In the first year as prisoners, Michael Pearson and Victor Weldon did what almost every other convict does. Both prepared appeals, proclaiming their innocence, claimed their defense attorneys made mistakes that stripped them of their right to a fair trial.
It took Pearson just two weeks to file his direct appeal with the state appeals court.
Pearson asked his trial judge, Cothran, for what's known as a directed verdict, which is essentially an instruction from a judge to the jury to find a defendant not guilty because the state provided legally insufficient evidence to prove a defendant's guilt.
Pearson argued that the only piece of evidence linking him to any of this was a single fingerprint on the back of Edward "Slick" Gibbons' stolen El Camino.
READ: MICHAEL WILSON PEARSON'S 2012 NEW TRIAL ORDER:
2014 PEARSON APPEALS COURT REVERSAL OF CONVICTIONDownloadJudge R. Ferrell Cothran denied Pearson's plea for a directed verdict, and the jury judged Pearson and Weldon based on the evidence used against them at trial.
The Sumter PD fingerprint expert, Marie Hodge, couldn't tell the jury how, when, or where Pearson's fingerprint ended up on the car.
Pearson argued for how it was possible: he lived around the corner from Gibbon's auto parts store and frequented a Chinese restaurant beside the parts store.
This aerial image shows the proximity of Michael Pearson's home to Edward "Slick" Gibbons' auto parts store and the Chinese restaurant Pearson said he would walk to and eat. Google Street View mapping shows Gibbons' while El Camino parked on the right side of the parts store in multiple years, Google drove by and captured images. (Source: WJZY graphic)Pearson said he didn't own a vehicle and didn't have a license, and walked everywhere he went. He argued it was possible his print got onto Gibbons' car while it was parked at the business, and denied he knew Gibbons personally or where he lived.
The S.C. Attorney General's Office stepped in and fought against Pearson's appeal.
As the state's law firm, the AG's office under Attorney General Alan Wilson is tasked with defending Solicitor Chip Finney and the conviction. Wilson and Assistant AG Jennifer Ellis Roberts went to work filing arguments against Pearson.
READ: S.C. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S BRIEF OPPOSING MICHAEL PEARSON'S NEW TRIAL:
Respondent's Final BriefDownloadIt took the state appeals court 29 months to make a decision. The court reversed Pearson's conviction, agreeing with the convicted man, "Viewing all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, there was insufficient evidence to submit the case to the jury. The recovered fingerprint directly tied Pearson to the stolen vehicle. Nonetheless, the fingerprint merely raised a suspicion of Pearson's guilt because there was no additional evidence showing when the fingerprint was placed on the vehicle. Moreover, none of the other evidence presented by the State placed Pearson at the crime scene or established a relationship between Pearson and Weldon. For this reason, the jury could only have guessed Pearson was involved in the crimes," S.C. Court of Appeals Judge John D. Geathers wrote in his opinion.
Judge John Cannon Few and Judge Paul Short both concurred with Geathers' opinion.
The opinion granted Michael Pearson a new trial. But that would be short-lived as the AG's office stepped in and asked the S.C. Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision and to reverse the decision to grant Pearson a new trial.
On March 23, 2016, the S.C. Supreme Court reversed the appeals court, stripping Pearson of his new trial. He remained in prison serving his 60-year sentence.
READ: S.C. SUPREME COURT'S REVERSAL OF NEW TRIAL FOR MICHAEL PEARSON:
Opinion 27612DownloadAfter Pearson was denied his new trial, Victor Weldon filed an appeal with the S.C. Court of Appeals, asking for a new trial, despite the DNA evidence against him. Weldon claimed his own defense attorney failed him and kept him from receiving a fair trial by failing to call alibi witnesses at trial.
Weldon was denied a new trial in his efforts at Post Conviction Relief, or PCR, a process allowing a convicted person a path to a new trial if they can convince a judge they did not receive a fair trial.
Weldon's PCR effort died when Judge Jocelyn Newman ruled that his trial lawyer provided effective and sufficient counsel to him at trial, and he was not prejudiced by his counsel failing to call his own mother and sister as alibi witnesses. Weldon claimed his family members would have testified he was at home during the time of the Gibbons attack.
The appeals court heard Weldon's appeal, and on July 30, 2014, the court issued an opinion, granting Weldon a new trial. The AG's office filed a request with the state supreme court, asking the court to overturn the appeals court decision.
On. Sept. 7, 2022, the S.C. Supreme Court denied the AG's office request for review and Victor Weldon was off and running toward a new trial on his charges in the Gibbons ambush.
Meanwhile, out of appellate options, Michael Pearson was sitting in prison with no hope of a new trial, unless he could turn up new evidence somewhere. He didn't know how close he was to that new evidence finding him.
'AN INNOCENT MAN'
Victor Weldon was shipped out of the state prison system and back to the county jail following his appeal victory. Weldon and Solicitor Chip Finney were preparing for a rematch inside the Clarendon County Courthouse.
But Finney offered Weldon a deal: tell everything he knew about the morning Slick Gibbons was attacked and every person involved in it, and Finney would ask to have the remaining 45 years of Weldon's 60-year sentence erased.
Victor Weldon points to a picture of Leonard Smith from a SLED-prepared photo line-up during an interview with a solicitor's investigator in early 2023. Weldon confessed to his role in the 2010 ambush robbery of Edward "Slick" Gibbons during a March 2, 2023, interview with the solicitor's office. (Source: Clarendon County Sheriff's Office)On March 2, 2023, jailers took Weldon to the solicitor's office to interview with Mark Creech, a retired S.C. Law Enforcement Division agent who went to work for Finney after his SLED retirement.
Creech spent 51 minutes interviewing Weldon, where the convict confessed to being one of three men who plotted the Gibbons ambush and robbery the night before, then executed the hit before the sun came up on May 15, 2010. Weldon said a man named Leonard Smith showed up at his house in Sumter between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., and they left for Gibbons' house in Manning.
On Feb. 22, 2023, Victor Weldon and Third Circuit Solicitor Chip Finney signed this negotiated plea agreement. The following week, Weldon was in an interview with Finney's investigator, giving a confession and evidence that Michel Pearson was innocent of the crimes he was convicted of in May 2012. (Source: Clarendon County Clerk of Court)Here's a partial transcript of that conversation:
CREECH: “And what happened then?”
WELDON: “I ain’t answered it, I ain’t peeped out the window, then he (Leonard Smith) knocked on the back door and he cracked it open and screamed my name, so I got up. And he say he wanted to hit a lick because his brother was in jail. His brother’s name is Jamie Smith. He came and we talked, we sitting outside in the car, me and Kevin Mellette and we smoke a joint and talked about it and –”
CREECH: “All right, you got to back up. How do you know Leonard Smith?”
WELDON: “Went to school.”
CREECH: “What school?”
WELDON: “Lakewood.”
CREECH: “Okay, so let me make sure I'm clear in my mind. He shows up at your house on that Saturday morning back in 2010, in May? Three or 4:00 in the morning, his brother's in jail, he wants to hit a lick, which means he wants to go rob somebody?”
WELDON: “Uh huh.”
CREECH: “Is that what hit a lick means? And you go outside with him and sat in his car and who else is in there?”
WELDON: “Kevin Mellette. It’s somebody else, but I don’t know, I don’t know him.”
CREECH: “Who is Kevin Mellette?”
WELDON: “Somebody I know.”
CREECH: “Is he from Manning or Sumter?”
WELDON: “Sumter.”
CREECH: “And there was another guy in the car?”
WELDON: “Yeah.”
CREECH: “And you don't know him?”
WELDON “No.”
CREECH: “Have you since learned his name?”
WELDON: “Nah, ah…I don’t even know him. I think they call him Peanut, but I know he's not from around here.”
CREECH: “Is he from Manning?”
WELDON: “I don’t know where he’s from. I don’t know him.”
CREECH: “So y’all sitting there talking about it.”
WELDON: “Was like, we got a sweet lick. And he said, like his brother – he said he wanted to try to get his brother out of jail because his brother’s locked up on some burglary charges. And then I'm like, what all y’all trying to do? And they said man it's going to be easy. Just go in and get some money, he ain’t going to fight back and get out. So, we sit in the car and smoke some weed and after that, I don't know what time it was, but we drove to his house and I think it was a rental, a gold, some type of gold car. I don’t even know what type of car it was.”
WELDON: “We drove and we got dropped off.”
CREECH: “Who was driving?”
WELDON: “I know, know, whoever that was –”
CREECH: “The other guy was driving?”
WELDON: “Uh, huh.”
CREECH: “So, this unknown, possibly Peanut, was driving?”
WELDON: “Uh huh.”
CREECH: “Describe him.”
WELDON: “Dark skin, he had glasses on.”
CREECH: “Glasses? Black male?”
WELDON: “Yeah.”
CREECH: “So he's driving this gold car and he drops you, Kevin Melette, and Leonard Smith off?”
WELDON: “Uh huh.”
CREECH: “Where does he drop y’all off at?”
WELDON: “At the front of Slick's house.”
CREECH: “Okay, had you ever been there before?”
WELDON: “No.”
CREECH: “Do you remember how you got there?”
WELDON: “I don't know how to get there, but they dropped us. There’s a bunch of turns and all types of stuff.”
Weldon spent the past years proclaiming his innocence, but with a chance at freedom, he finally told the truth to investigators during the 2023 negotiation of his plea agreement with Solicitor Finney. Weldon admitted to hiding in a side room of Slick Gibbons' garage with two other men, waiting for Gibbons to leave for work.
When Gibbons walked out of his door, the three ran out into the garage and attacked the elderly man. They sat on his chest and legs, beat him, and took everything out of his pockets. Two of the men also tied Gibbons' legs together with duct tape and wrapped the tape around his head, Weldon told the solicitor's investigator in a video-recorded interview.
In Victor Weldon's March 2, 2023, confession, he revealed a name investigators had never heard before as one of the co-conspirators in the 2010 ambush and armed robbery of Slick Gibbons. Weldon also told investigators he didn't know Michael Pearson before the ambush and that Pearson had nothing to do with the crimes committed. (Source: Clarendon County Sheriff's Office)There was one name Weldon never mentioned when he laid out the details of the planning and execution of the "lick" on Slick Gibbons: Michael Wilson Pearson.
In fact, Weldon told Investigator Creech that he not only didn't know who Pearson was when they were both tried in the Gibbons ambush, but Pearson was never with him and his co-conspirators before, during, or after the attack.
That's something Victor Weldon never told anyone before he started negotiating his plea deal to save himself from spending the next 45 years in prison. Here's a partial transcript of that exchange between Weldon and Investigator Creech:
CREECH: "And Pearson ain’t had nothing to do with this?”
WELDON: “I don’t know him.”
CREECH: “I’m talking about your codefendant that was tried with you.”
WELDON: “I know who you’re talking about. I don’t know – I don’t know him. I’ve been saying that –”
CREECH: “He never had nothing to do with this?”
WELDON: “I don’t know him.”
CREECH: “He wasn’t with y’all?”
WELDON: “No.”
CREECH: “Why didn’t you tell them that to begin with?”
WELDON: “I did, I said I don’t know Pearson.”
CREECH: “No, there's a difference in: I don't know Pearson, and Pearson was not there. So, was Pearson there?”
WELDON: "No.”
CREECH: “Pearson ain’t had nothing to do with this, he’s an innocent man sitting in jail right now is what you're telling me?”
WELDON: “Yeah.”
Investigator Creech called Weldon back into the solicitor's office twice more in April 2023. Creech and Clarendon County Sheriff's Office Captain Kenneth Clark had SLED prepare two lineups for Weldon to identify Kevin Mellette and Leonard Smith. Weldon circled both Mellette and Smith's photographs during those follow-up interviews.
Weldon ultimately pleaded guilty to his role in the Gibbons ambush and is set to be freed on Oct. 31, 2025. He's currently housed in the Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center in Sumter, S.C., according to jail booking records.
Michael Pearson would continue sitting in prison waiting for the solicitor's office to do something to free him. He'd eventually file his own PCR case in June 2024, asking Attorney General Alan Wilson's office for a reduced sentence based on "newly discovered evidence."
Pearson's PCR case sat at the AG's office without any new filing in the case until mid-2025, when attorneys for the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence stepped in and worked to free him.
Our investigation into why Pearson spent 30 months in prison after the solicitor learned of Weldon's confession, why the AG's office fought against Pearson's appeals, and whether the AG did anything to investigate Pearson's PCR filing are all questions we worked to answer in our 'Objection' investigation.
Hence then, the article about objection innocent man left in sc prison years after codefendant s confession was published today ( ) and is available on QUEEN CITY NEWS ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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