Katie Ring (9:24)
One day after Steven Bryant stole a rifle and shot a man in the back, he went over to his friend Cliff Ganey's house to smoke a few joints and drink some beers. Apparently, Bryant had a penchant for smoking joints that he laced with Raid insecticide, not to mention methamphetamines and Benadryl. An interesting choice. So you can imagine the state of mind Bryant was in when he and Cliff went out to a convenience store to buy more beer. Bryant drove his truck and on the way back they just drove through quiet, isolated country roads. After a while, Cliff asked him to pull over so he could urinate from there. Bryant has given two different versions of what happened next. In one version, he claimed he saw Cliff reaching for a knife in his waistband. In another, he said Cliff made a sexual advance towards him. Regardless of what actually happened, the outcome was undeniable. Bryant pulled out his gun and shot his own friend three times, killing him. Afterward, he went back to Cliff's house, stole all of his electronics along with a fish tank, and set the house on fire. His spree continued from there. On October 11, Bryant returned to a home he'd cased a few days before and knocked on the door. The homeowner, Willard Tgin, opened up and in his typical mo, Bryant told Willard that his truck had overheated. Willard recognized Bryant from before. Bryant had asked to use his phone book so he could call a friend, and he seemed innocent enough, so Willard welcomed him in again and started making small talk. According to Bryant, Willard started talking about religion, but then all of the sudden turned hostile. So Bryant shot Willard nine times. Willard didn't survive. He was 62 years old. This is where it gets really disturbing. Bryant stayed in the house, which Willard shared with his wife and daughter for hours after killing him first, he stole Some jewelry, including some that Willard was wearing, which he cleaned in the sink. Then he smoked some cigarettes he found in the house, rearranged their furniture, and used their computer. When Bryant was done smoking, he burned the cigarettes into Willard's eyes, set his goatee on fire, and then scrawled a message on the wall in Willard's blood writing, victim four in two weeks. Catch me if you can. However, victim was misspelled with an E instead of a second I. Surprise, surprise. Finally, Bryant lit candles over Willard's body. Before Bryant left the house, something surprising happened. Bryant picked up and realized it was Willard's wife and daughter calling to check in. Bryant told the woman he was, quote, the prowler. A lame name if you ask me. Confused. They asked to talk to Willard, and Bryant responded, you can't. I killed him. Two days later, on October 13, Bryant met his fourth victim at a convenience store around 4:30am There, he ran into a man named Chris Burgess who was on his bike and needed a ride. Brian obliged and helped Chris hitch his bike to the back of his pickup truck before they both got in and drove away. During that car ride, Bryant turned on Chris, shot him three times, then left his body on the side of the road. Hours later, a hunter found Chris's body. By now, police were investigating the string of violent shootings, and they'd collected some crucial evidence. First, they found security footage of Brian at the convenience store with Cliff Gainey before he killed him. That footage also showed Bryant's truck, which multiple witnesses had also described seeing near the areas of the other attacks. From there, they used ballistics analysis to confirm that all of the bullets were fired from the same gun. And witnesses from some of the crime scenes were pretty sure that Bryant was responsible. The authorities followed up on the leads, and they tracked down Bryant's truck at his girlfriend's house the same day he killed Chris. They found Bryant inside and recovered the gun used in the murders as well as other stolen goods, and immediately knew they had their man. Bryant was arrested and confessed almost immediately. He was charged with three counts of murder along with three counts of burglary, one count of arson, one count of armed robbery, and one count of possession of a stolen handgun. After a series of delays, on August 8, 2008, he pled guilty while awaiting trial. Bryant would be additionally charged with threatening one detention officer and beating another. Now, as we know, Bryant would eventually be sentenced to the death penalty, but there was a lot of controversy over this in court. Bryant's attorney argued that his client had apparently been sexually Abused by multiple people, both family members and others in the community when he was just a child. His troubled childhood continued when he was sent to juvenile detention at 11 years old. Brian's defense argued that he suffered from PTSD and self medicated with drugs and alcohol, which impaired his thinking as he carried out his killing spree. But the prosecution argued that the killings had been methodical and premeditated and that these factors shouldn't affect his sentence. The judge agreed and on September 11, 2008, Stephen Bryant, then 27, was sentenced to death for the murder of Willard Teigen, along with two life sentences for the murders of Clifton Ganey and Christopher burgess in a 2025 appeal. Ahead of his execution, Bryant's lawyers continued to argue that he was too mentally ill to know right from wrong. They said as a result of his mother abusing drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant with him, Bryant had severe brain damage and that this evidence wasn't heard during his initial trial. They theorized that he suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which caused brain damage that had played a key role in the murders. Then they pointed out that he had not been given a brain scan prior to his trial, which may have proven in utero brain damage. But Bryant's conviction was upheld along with his death sentence. A death warrant was issued on October 17, 2025, and Bryant was given a CH between dying by lethal injection, electric chair or firing squad. He chose firing squad. Before his death, he was also granted his last meal. He asked for a mixed seafood stir fry, fish fried over rice, egg rolls, stuffed shrimp, two candy bars and a German chocolate cake. Witnesses say he made no final statement, only glancing briefly at the victim's families before the hood was put over his head. Bryant became the seventh person executed in the state of South Carolina in 14 months, following a 13 year pause in executions due to supply issues with lethal injection drugs. Bryant's case was one of the few that have sparked debate about the manner in which death row inmates are executed. Certain methods and their legalities still vary widely by state. His victims loved ones didn't make a statement in the immediate aftermath. But three of Willard Teachen's family members stood and held hands in the front row of the witness room as it happened. As for Steven, his attorney read a statement that his final wish was that nobody like him who needed help was ever denied because they couldn't afford it. It's impossible to say whether that would have helped him. But in the end, Stephen Bryant faced the ultimate punishment in South Carolina for his crimes. While his case reached A definitive and deadly conclusion. Our next case remains unresolved because the man at the center is still on the run. As of this recording, a manhunt is still underway for a man named Dominic Liam Connolly in Craven County, North Carolina. Connolly, who's 24, is wanted for murder, first degree arson, attempted first degree murder, assault of a law enforcement officer, resisting a public officer, and larceny of a motor vehicle. The FBI was initially offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to Connolly's arrest, but they've since doubled it to $10,000. Connolly is considered armed and dangerous. Let's get into what happened leading up to his disappearance. On October 25, 2025, authorities were called to a house fire on Highway 101 near the city of Havelock, North Carolina. When they arrived at the scene, they made a grim discovery. Patricia Lopedote had been murdered inside the home before it was set ablaze. Though they have yet to publicly disclose her cause and manner of death. In a press release, the Craven County Sheriff's Office said the scene was brutal. Investigators were quickly able to determine that Patricia, who was 72 years old, was Liam Connolly's grandmother, and that as recently as 2021, the two had shared the same address. And after an autopsy and investigation, they concluded that Connally had murdered her before setting the house on fire. Authorities still aren't sure why Connally would have wanted to murder his own grandmother. But from the moment her body was found in the burning home, the search for Connolly was on.
