Sam's Club employee Samuel Singfield talks with a Richmond County sheriff's deputy outside the store Sunday afternoon. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF

Body, robbery may be related

Sam's Club manager missing since store robbery may have been burned in car

Web posted June 22, 1998

By Chasiti Kirkland and Emily Sollie
Staff Writers

Investigators in Georgia and South Carolina are trying to establish a link between a robbery Sunday morning at the Sam's Club discount store on Bobby Jones Expressway and a body found in a burning car just north of the Savannah River.

Police believe the body could be David Holt, 45, of Cayce, S.C., a Sam's Club manager who was last seen Saturday night. An autopsy was scheduled for this morning, said Aiken County sheriff's Lt. Michael Frank.

Detectives are operating on the theory that Mr. Holt was kidnapped after he locked the store and left for the night, authorities said.

Richmond County sheriff's deputies talk outside the Sam's Club store while detectives inside investigate Sunday. CHRIS THELEN/STAFF

The scenario began unfolding shortly after 3 a.m. when North Augusta public-safety officers responded to a car fire on Sand Pit Road. They found a man's body and contacted Aiken County sheriff's officers. The body was burned beyond recognition.

An hour later, an arson investigator and a crime scene unit from South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division were dispatched to North Augusta to investigate, SLED spokesman Hugh Munn said.

Richmond County sheriff's deputies received a call about 6 a.m. from a Sam's Club employee who arrived for work and found the store's doors unlocked and the safe open and empty, said sheriff's Chief Deputy Deputy Ronald Strength.

Mr. Holt, the manager on duty Saturday night, had been missing since sometime early Sunday morning, Chief Deputy Strength said. The manager's car, a gold 1997 Mazda Protege, matches the description of the burned car found on Sand Pit Road north of the Savannah River.

Click on the map above to see a larger version.STAFF

Authorities have determined that Mr. Holt set the alarm and left the store at 12:05 a.m. Someone re-entered the building at 1:26 a.m. and turned off the alarm. There was no evidence of a break-in, Chief Deputy Strength said.

``Whoever came back into the building definitely had keys and knew the (safe) combination,'' Chief Deputy Strength said. ``We're assuming it was the manager, possibly abducted somewhere and forced to go back and open the store and the safe.''

Sam's was closed Sunday. A hand-lettered cardboard sign, duct-taped to the store's entrance, told customers: ``Sam's is closed Sunday, will reopen Monday. Thank You.''

Inside the store, authorities from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Richmond County Sheriff's Department combed the premises for evidence. Across the river, Aiken County sheriff's officers, North Augusta police and South Carolina state agents searched for clues about the man in the burned car.

David A. Holt is believed to be the man found in a burning car.SPECIAL

``We are working together to see if the two are connected,'' Chief Deputy Strength said.

A member of Mr. Holt's family, contacted at home, didn't want to talk about the investigation. She said the family didn't know for sure if the body found in the car was Mr. Holt.

The incident Sunday came a little more than a year after a Wal-Mart employee was kidnapped from the Sam's Club shopping center parking lot when she reported for work at 6 a.m. June 3, 1997. The female employee was approached at knife-point and forced to drive a man to a cul-de-sac off River Watch Parkway, where she was raped.

Willie Thomas Lampkin was convicted in February for the hijacking and rape of the Wal-Mart employee. He was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.

Staff writer Kristen Wyatt contributed to this article.