Edna Faye Daniels, 78, faces charges in connection with helping cover up a killing allegedly by her grandson Ryan O’Neil Woodruff, 30, authorities said. (Source: Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office)
A 78-year-old grandmother helped cover up a murder last week that authorities said was committed by her grandson, who had already been out on bond awaiting charges for killing two of his relatives in 2021, officials said.
Edna Faye Daniels, 78, of Georgetown, South Carolina, was taken into custody on Friday, Sheriff Carter Weaver said in a news release. The 5-foot tall, 135-pound woman faces charges of obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact to murder, officials said.
Daniels is accused of helping cover up a killing allegedly by her grandson Ryan O’Neil Woodruff, 30, authorities said, alleging that she witnessed the murder and then lied to police about what she knew.
Daniels “knowingly and willfully provide materially false information to law enforcement investigators on several occasions while being questioned about a homicide she directly witnessed that occurred in her residence,” a Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office arrest warrant affidavit said.
Woodruff was arrested Tuesday in connection with the killing of Ty’Quez De’Metrius Walker, 18, in Greentown, South Carolina, officials said. Greentown is about 70 miles north of Charleston.
Details about how the killing went down were not immediately available.
Before Tuesday’s killing, Woodruff had already been charged with the double murder of two of his relatives in May 2021. Deputies discovered the bodies of Debra Goins and Roger Woodruff Sr. while responding to a welfare check, officials said in a news release.
They were found with multiple blunt-force trauma wounds to their heads, officials said. Woodruff had been living with them at the time.
Woodruff is also accused of attempted murder in Williamsburg County, officials said. Details about that case were not available.
Woodruff was out on $100,000 bond while facing charges in the double slayings, according to WMBF-TV, NBC’s affiliate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The case prompted the state’s solicitor to call for stricter laws, the station reported.
“This turned out really, really bad,” said 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, who oversaw Woodruff’s 2021 bond hearing and said it’s common to see people facing murder charges out on bond, according to WMBF-TV on Thursday. “You are sad, you don’t want anything like that to happen. I’m sure the defense attorney didn’t want this to happen, nobody wants to see another person lose their life.”