According to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton, the decedent from Friday morning’s shootout with Aiken County Sheriff’s Office deputies has been positively identified as Ronald Hamilton Jr., 26, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The State Law Enforcement Division is enlisting the help of South Carolina’s 46 sheriffs’ departments in crime fighting as state agencies struggle with budget cuts.

According to Lt. David Turno, officers from the Aiken Department of Public Safety (ADPS) responded to call from the homeowner at 288 Sand Fox Place in Aiken, about 4:50 p.m., Wednesday afternoon.

According to our news partner, ‘The Aiken Standard’, State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) agents have arrested Aiken County GOP treasurer Virginia Austin Allen, 47, for her alleged roll in orchestrating a number of automated phone calls earlier this summer that endorsed S.C. Sen. Greg Ryberg and then S.C. House District 81 seat candidate Scot Singer.

Authorities have captured two inmates who escaped from a South Carolina minimum security prison. State Law Enforcement Division spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons confirmed Thursday night that 19-year-old Mark Clark and 21-year-old Charles Marlowe were apprehended. The men were reported missing from Stevenson Correctional Institution in Columbia around 7 a.m. Thursday.

According to Lt. Michael Frank, as a result of a two-month undercover drug investigation, the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office, in cooperation with other local and state agencies, arrested 30 people, early Friday, at a home at 155 Kip Road, in North Augusta, South Carolina.

A North Augusta police officer has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a civil rights complaint that was filed after a 2007 police chase.  The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said today the case was closed because the alleged victim refused to cooperate with state investigators.  The case was originally filed by Joseph Williams.  Williams claimed officer Robert Bell struck him in the mouth with a gun during a June 18, 2007 arrest.

State Law Enforcement Division spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons told the Herald Journal of Spartanburg on Monday that its investigation of the Westview-Fairforest Fire District began this summer. Timmons says the investigation was requested by the South Carolina Retirement Systems.

SLED hotline leads to additional charges against former school administrator, Stephen Coke Eubanks

According to a release from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), its Pee Dee Agents announce the arrest of an Alabama woman in the death of her infant daughter. Courtney Sue Braddock, 27, of 124 Trojan Way, in Troy, Alabama is charged with Homicide By Child Abuse.

According to Josh Gelinas, with the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC), a minimum security inmate who walked away from his work assignment Tuesday, at Columbia Farms in Greenville, has been taken into custody. About 2:50 p.m. Wednesday, Joe Dean Bellis, 39, was spotted traveling in an automobile with two other men along White House Road, in Greenville.

According to Josh Gellinas, with the S.C. Department of Corrections, a minimum security inmate walked away from his work assignment at a farming facility in Greenville, S.C., on Tuesday. Joe Dean Bellis was confirmed missing from Columbia Farms at 1354 Rutherford Road, about 10:20 a.m. Bellis is serving a four-year sentence for grand larceny at the minimum security Livesay Correctional Institution, in Spartanburg, S.C.

SLED agents say its hotline has been busy since the arrest of Stephen Eubanks, a former North Augusta principal. Eubanks is accused of sexually abusing students in the 70’s. Victims are urged to call a SLED hotline.

According to a release from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), agents are charging a Saluda County woman in connection with the death of her toddler son. Renata M. Hill, 27, of the 100 block of Bittersweet Road, in Chappells, S.C., is charged with Unlawful Neglect of a Child.

Police in South Carolina already take a suspect’s fingerprints when he’s arrested. Starting soon, they’ll also take a DNA sample from everyone arrested for a felony or for eavesdropping, peeping or stalking. Until now, the state didn’t collect a DNA sample until conviction. WJBF News Channel 6’s Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, has more.