A South Carolina woman was recently arrested and charged in connection with the long-ago murder of another woman from the Palmetto State.
Nearly six years ago, in late October 2016, 22-year-old Catherine “Cati” Ann Blauvelt was found by Simpsonville Police officers in the basement of a home that had been abandoned for over 20 years.
Over this past summer, local, county, and federal officials – all led by the U.S. Marshals Service – in the Pacific Northwest arrested Blauvelt’s long-wanted husband, John Tufton Blauvelt, 33, for the murder of his wife. He also stands accused of being a deserter from the U.S. Army.
Now, officials in Simpsonville say they’ve ascertained one of the alleged killer’s accomplices.
Hannah Elizabeth Thompson, 23, stands accused of two counts of misprision or concealment of a felony, two counts of obstruction of justice, and one count of accessory after the fact.
According to arrest warrants obtained by Greenville FOX affiliate WHNS, Thompson knew about Cati Blauvelt’s murder and concealed her role in driving John Blauvelt to, and dropping him off at, a location where the deceased woman worked on the day she died.
Police allege Thompson followed the alleged killer as he drove his victim’s car to a parking lot and left it there after she was dead – and that she then concealed that fact from investigators as well.
Authorities, in the warrants obtained by the TV station, go on to accuse the new defendant of playing dumb as to John Blauvelt’s whereabouts in general, saying that she specifically knew and concealed his location and told law enforcement that he simply “disappeared one morning.”
According to warrants obtained by Greenville NBC affiliate WYFF, Thompson is believed to have been John Blauvelt’s girlfriend at the time of the murder – when the female defendant was 17 years old.
According to the Greenville News, Cati Blauvelt last spoke with a family member around 3:00 p.m. on the day she died. At the time, she was coming home after leaving the Greenville PetSmart where she worked – which was located on Woodruff Road; the same place Thompson is accused of driving John Blauvelt to that day. The victim was reported missing by her mother after failing to meet up with friends after work. Her friends found her stabbed to death hours later.
“I called her and asked her what she was doing and she said she was driving and I asked her where she was going she said she didn’t know,” the victim’s niece, Chyanne Paxton, told WHNS in 2017.
“And I really didn’t think about it at the time, but she said she’ll be there to get us in an hour so we can go get food and I said OK, and I told her I loved her when I got off the phone,” Paxton continued. “I fell sleep and when I woke up she had not called or knocked or anything.”
Before his arrest in late July, John Blauvelt was last seen in Las Cruces, New Mexico traveling with his then-teenage companion in November 2016 – he had been charged with his wife’s murder the month before. Thompson turned up in Oregon in December of that year.
Before Thompson was found, police charged another man, Charles Sidney Scott, in connection with the underlying crime. Years later, however, the charges against him were reportedly dropped in a plea deal that resulted in Scott being released on time served.
According to WHNS, Thompson was denied bond during a hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, and jail records back up that report. She is currently being held in the Greenville County Detention Center. Her next court date has yet to be set.
[image via Greenville County Detention Center]
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