MCBEE, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) -- The phone call had all the signs of those annoying robocalls. You know, the ones where a robotic voice on the other end of the call launches into the scripted speech trying to sell you windows?
Or calling about your car warranty. The ones where you nearly crack your phone screen pressing the big red call end button with the force of 10,000 suns.
OFFICER DOWN: Ambushed McBee cop claims town implemented ticket quota, earned himself ‘cash cow’ nicknameBut this call was different, “After the beep, please say your first and last name,” a female’s voice commanded. I’m sure my forehead muscles instantly wrinkled, my eyes squinted, and my head turned to the side as I tried to find clarity in the chaos of the first few seconds of this phone call.
“Bryne Campbell,” a man’s voice said. He sounded like he was in a hole in the ground. I spent the next few seconds trying to place the name.
Bryne Chad Campbell is listed as the victim in the 1994 assault and battery with intent to kill charge filed against McBee town councilman Robbie Liles. Liles later pleaded guilty to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and was sentenced to probation in 1997. (Source: Darlington County Detention Center)“This call is not private; it will be recorded, and it may be monitored,” the recording continued.
A few weeks earlier, I went on the hunt to find Chad Campbell, a man from Hartsville, S.C., listed as a victim in an assault and battery with intent to kill case from 1994. The Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office charged a man named Robbie Liles with trying to kill Campbell in August 1994.
I wanted to know more about the case and the circumstances.
I searched the state's online court record database and found pending charges against Campbell out of Darlington County. I searched the inmate roster from the Darlington County Detention Center and found Campbell was booked into jail nearly two years earlier on charges unrelated to the case where Liles was convicted.
If I wanted to get in touch with him, I’d have to find someone who knew him and ask him to call me from jail. I got in touch with Campbell’s father a few weeks before the jailhouse calls and asked him to give his son my number.
‘Was a joke.’ SC reporter arrested after taping sign to front of town hallThe call that sounded like a salesman’s spiel turned out to be the call I’d asked for weeks earlier.
“I just got the number last night, and I figured I'd wait until today during business hours to try to call you,” Campbell told Queen City News Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr in the jailhouse call. At the time of the call on March 25, Campbell had been locked up in the county jail for nearly two years awaiting trial on a state drug charge, as well as the possession/sale/disposal of a stolen vehicle.
Campbell also had two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon hanging over him. Charges that the United States Attorney’s Office would later have him indicted on in September 2023. Campbell faced 15 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. If convicted.
The man McBee councilman Robbie Liles was convicted of beating with a shotgun and firing it at him told Queen City News he hasn't forgotten the details surrounding the August 23, 1994, run-in with Robbie Liles. Chad Campbell recalled the incident in a March 2025 jailhouse phone call. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Just 10 days after our call, a federal judge sentenced Campbell to 26 months in FCI Butner, a federal prison outside of Raleigh.
“The reason I'm calling you up is, I got your name out of a very, very old case file as a victim,” Barr told Campbell in the call. “Do you know a Robbie Liles?” I asked. “Yes, sir,” Campbell responded, confirming he was the victim I had spent the past several days looking for.
OFFICER DOWN: McBee cop who survived 62 shots fired at him says town threw him out ‘like garbage’The 1994 indictment shows the attempt Liles made on Campbell’s life happened on Union Church Road, a two-lane county road just off Highway 1 on the west side of McBee.
“I remember pretty much everything, yeah. A quick little rundown, his wife was cheating on him. We were messing around, I guess. We got into an incident, I was dropping her back off, uh, across the road from her house, and he (Liles) came out across the road, him and another guy with a gun, and kind of started shooting at us. We ran and got split up. I told her to stay down out of sight, and they passed by her and come on to me. Got up, he shot at me, he skinned me up a little bit with the shotgun. And I told him, stop. I said I give up and he beat me with the shotgun and made me walk back to the house, to his parents’ house, which they had a doublewide in the backyard behind it,” Campbell recalled during the jailhouse phone call.
The 1994 charging documents appeared to support Campbell’s version of events.
The court records detailing the 1994 assault and battery with intent to kill case against Robbie Liles show the shotgun beating he gave Chad Campbell happened on Union Church Road in McBee. The charging records did not list a physical address of the incident. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)“When he got into the yard, he got another gun because the shotgun was pretty much useless. He got another gun out of the car, a .22, and then he called his dad on the cell phone, on an old case you carry [a] phone [in] back then…asked his dad to come outside, and he said he wanted him to see what he – who he had caught in the yard. Which, he didn’t catch me in the yard, I wasn’t in the yard, I wasn’t going to go in the yard. His dad come out, he was standing there, and he took the pistol from the Black guy that was with him, he was fixing to shoot me, and his mom come out and jumped on him and knocked the gun out of his hand, he shot right beside my head. She told his dad, Butch, give me some help, or call for help. I said, if he just let me go, I was fine, I’d get myself to the hospital. I barely made it to the hospital. I was beat up pretty damn good,” Campbell said.
“He didn’t shoot me, no, but it was damn – it was right by my face. I mean, it was close enough that I thought I was shot. He beat the s—t out of me, though. He beat me down real good. He held me at gunpoint while doing it,” Campbell said.
The Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office released this mugshot of McBee town councilman Robbie Liles, which is the only booking photograph the office still has. Liles was booked into the county jail on several occasions for various charges over the years. Many of Liles' prior charges have been expunged, and the records destroyed. (Source: Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office)Campbell didn’t know Liles had been elected to office as a McBee town councilman in 2020, but knew Liles was “trying to run for something and asked Campbell to “sign some paperwork.” He couldn’t recall what the paperwork was, but knew it was related to an expungement of Liles’ felony assault conviction against Campbell.
Campbell said he would have signed the documents, “And I told him I didn't have no problem doing that, I mean, I wasn't against it, you know? I mean, that was the past,” Campbell explained, “I don't hold no grudge against him for it.”
“I never saw him again. He never came back by the house, I don't know what happened, but I never saw him again...I wouldn’t want to hold him up in anything. I mean, if he's doing, because he was doing better and both of us have – everything’s changed since then. That’s been a long time ago,” Campbell said.
The court records detailing Liles’ 1994 felony assault conviction still exist inside a file in the records room at the Chesterfield County Courthouse. The file contains a copy of the November 1994 grand jury indictment against Liles for assault and battery with intent to kill.
In November 1994, the Chesterfield County grand jury indicted Robbie Liles on one count of Assault and Battery with Intent to Kill. Liles later pleaded guilty to Assault and Battery of a High and Aggravated Nature. Liles was sentenced to 5 years in state prison, but the judge suspended the prison time for 3 years' probation. (Source: Chesterfield County Clerk of Court)Liles spent nearly three years on bond on the felony assault charge when, in February 1997, a Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office drug agent found Liles at McBee High School around 9 p.m. on Feb. 23, 1997, drunk, with “one small bag of powder cocaine,” according to the court record.
The agent, C.J. Page, booked Liles into the Chesterfield County jail, and two weeks later, the grand jury again indicted Liles on the McBee High School charges. In April 1997, Liles pleaded guilty to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and the drug possession charge.
This April 17, 1997, Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office booking report shows Robbie Liles was jailed on a charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana. That charge was later expunged from Liles' record amid a federal drug conspiracy prosecution into Liles and two other men. (Source: Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office)The judge sentenced Liles, who was then 25, to five years in state prison on the assault charge and another two years in prison on the drug charge. The judge also ordered Liles to be evaluated and treated for substance abuse, submit to random drug testing, and placed him under intensive probation for the next three months.
The judge didn’t send Lile to prison; instead opted to suspend Liles’ prison sentence if Liles could successfully spend the next three years on probation, complying with the terms of probation and staying out of trouble with the law.
At 2:30 a.m. on the day Liles pleaded guilty to the felony assault and drug possession charges, Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office records show sheriff’s deputy J. Dixon booked Liles into the county jail on a charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Liles was released at 3:55 p.m. the following day.
The case file and all charging documents on the CCSO’s conspiracy charge disappeared from the county courthouse, and the charge does not show up in a search of Liles’ criminal background.
While Liles was pleading and the judge sentenced him in Chesterfield County, the U.S. Department of Justice and a federal grand jury were about to bring the power of the federal government down on Robbie Liles.
LILES’ FEDERAL DRUG CONSPIRACY CONVICTION
On April 22, 1997, the foreman of the federal grand jury seated in Florence scribbled his name at the bottom of a 10-count indictment. The grand jury was giving its blessing to a list of charges, accusing Robbie Liles and two other men of conspiring to distribute cocaine and marijuana.
A grand jury sat inside this Florence, S.C., federal courthouse in April 1997 and decided to indict Robbie Liles and two other men in a drug conspiracy investigation. Liles would later be convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in the conspiracy. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)It took the United States Marshals Service 17 days to find and arrest Liles. The federal court records in the drug conspiracy case show Liles initially pleaded not guilty to the two counts against him. In count one, the U.S. Attorney’s Office accused Liles, David Ray Caulder, and John Glen Brown of “…knowingly and intentionally combine, conspire, confederate and agree together and have tactic understanding with each other and with various other persons, both known and unknown to the grand jury, to unlawfully possess with intent to distribute cocaine…and marijuana.”
Count three claimed that “…on or about January 8, 1997, in the District of South Carolina, the defendants, David Ray Caulder and Robert Dale Liles, did knowingly and intentionally possess with intent to distribute and did distribute a quantity of marijuana,” according to the court record.
Robbie Liles and two other men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Florence, S.C., in April 1997. Liles would turn into an informant for federal investigators and accept a guilty plea that landed him in federal prison for 14 months. (Source: U.S. District Court)Liles wasted no time turning on his co-defendants and working with federal law enforcement and federal prosecutors to save himself. Just 56 days after his indictment, Liles signed a plea agreement, promising to provide information to the feds on Caulder and Brown, and any other drug dealer Liles had information on.
“Liles agrees to be fully truthful and forthright with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina and federal law enforcement agents in their investigation of drug trafficking, money laundering, firearms offenses, income tax evasion and other unlawful activities,” the plea agreement stated, “Liles must also testify fully and truthfully before any grand juries and at any trials or other proceedings if called upon to do so.”
READ: DOCUMENTS CONTAINED IN THE ARCHIVED CASE FILE TITLED 'UNITED STATES V. ROBERT DALE LILES'
USA-V-LILES-ET-AL-CASE-FILE-IN-ORDER-OF-EVENTSDownloadLiles officially pleaded guilty to count one of the federal indictment on June 18, 1997. Liles’ co-defendants pleaded guilty the following month.
The federal case records show Liles appeared and testified against both Caulder and Brown during the federal prosecutions of both men. In exchange, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed not to prosecute Liles for any federal crimes he may have committed before April 22, 1997.
Federal prosecutors also agreed to ask the judge for a downward departure in the sentencing guidelines if Liles provided “substantial assistance” in snitching on other people, including his co-defendants. Liles’ sentencing documents show he did what prosecutors asked him to do.
“Defendant Liles has cooperated and has provided substantial information to the Government, which has assisted in the investigation and successful prosecution of Defendant Billy Blackmon. Defendant Liles was debriefed by law enforcement regarding his prior drug dealings with Blackmon,” the prosecutor wrote in a motion for a sentence reduction for Liles.
McBee town councilman Robbie Liles ran for office in 2020, but an election dispute kept him from taking office until February 2023. Liles' criminal record and felony convictions prevented him from holding office for 15 years after he completed his sentences. By 2020, Liles' 15-year ban ended. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)“Defendant Liles was prepared to testify at trial against Blackmon had Blackmon not entered a guilty plea before this court on Oct. 5, 1998,” the prosecutor continued. The reduction was worth 30 days off whatever sentence the judge imposed on Liles.
On Nov. 3, 1997, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie sentenced Liles to 15 months in federal prison. Liles went to a county detention center that day, where he stayed until the U.S. Marshal Service loaded him into a van and drove him to a federal prison in Butner, N.C. on Nov. 25, 1997.
The judge also checked a box on the sentencing sheet, barring Liles from possessing a firearm.
With less than 13 months in federal prison, Liles was freed in November 1998 from a halfway house. Within days of his release, Liles failed a Nov. 13, 1998, drug test. Court records show he tested positive for marijuana. Liles failed two subsequent drug tests in January and May 1999. It wasn’t until July 1999 that federal probation agents filed a request with Liles’ sentencing judge, asking her to revoke his supervised release.
On July 21, 1999, Judge Currie revoked Liles’ supervised release and ordered him to serve the remaining eight months of his original sentence.
Liles was released from federal prison on Feb. 10, 2000.
SHOTS FIRED
Just before 5 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2003, Marlboro County dispatchers got a call from someone on Woodland Drive in Bennettsville. The caller told dispatchers she heard gunfire and wanted law enforcement to find out what happened.
Bennettsville Police Corporal Tim Hood showed up on Woodland Drive within two minutes and started the hunt for the shooter. Hood wrote in his report that he searched for a suspect and ran across a man at 304 Woodland Drive.
The address is listed as the “incident location” in the police report.
The Bennettsville Police Department report on the 2003 firearm charge against Robbie Liles does not show the city notified federal authorities that Liles was charged with a gun crime and later convicted of it. The shooting incident happened four years after the Nov. 3, 1997, order from a federal judge barring Liles from possessing a firearm. (Source: Bennettsville Police Department)“The above subject stated he did discharge a weapon into the air several times,” Hood wrote in his report. The officer found a .380 handgun on Liles, and Hood wrote the model and serial number into his incident report.
Hood took the gun for “safekeeping” and arrested Liles, then booked him into the county jail on a charge of discharging a firearm in the city limits. Liles was out of federal prison for exactly three years and still under a federal firearm ban at the time of the arrest.
Queen City News obtained the 2003 BPD incident report through a Freedom of Information Act request filed on the city of Bennettsville. The only record the city provided was the Woodland Drive incident report. I later obtained the court disposition sheet for the Liles prosecution, which shows a $250 bond forfeiture. The municipal court confirmed Liles didn't appear in court, and the court found him guilty and kept his $250 bond as a fine.
A spokeswoman for Brian Sterling, the newly-appointed U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, would not confirm whether records exist showing the U.S. Attorney's Office was notified of Robbie Liles' 2003 firearm conviction out of Bennettsville. A spokesman for the ATF conducted a check of that agency's records and found nothing pertaining to Liles and the BPD firearm case. (Source: U.S. Attorney's Office)Hood explained the forfeiture was for Liles’ failure to show up for his court hearing, and the judge kept Liles' $250 bond as a fine, and the case was closed.
Nothing in the city’s records shows BPD ever contacted any federal official to notify them of a felon in possession of a firearm or the conviction. I asked U.S. Attorney Brian Stirling’s spokeswoman, Veronica Hill, to check for any record of BPD contacting the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Florence.
Hill would not check with the Florence office for us. “I’m only able to share information available on the public record,” Hill wrote in a May 30 email to Queen City News Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr.
Unlike the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives performed a search for any documented contact between the Bennettsville Police and the ATF related to Liles’ 2003 firearm charge. The ATF’s Charlotte Public Information Officer, Corey Ray, issued the following response to Queen City News:
Local and state law enforcement agencies are not required to notify ATF on cases that we aren’t directly involved in, though we do have strong relationships with local partners, aware of cases involving serious gun charges, and work closely with the US Attorney’s Office on cases like the one you’ve asked about. That being said, I do not have any documentation on Mr. Liles. I’ll continue to look through our archives and check in with agents that covered that territory in that time frame. I’ll let you know asap if I come across information on Mr. Liles and his case.
Corey Ray, ATF CharlotteAs of this report, no documentation has been provided to Queen City News showing that any federal agency was contacted about the 2003 firearm case.
We also uncovered a more recent arrest out of Marlboro County on a charge of criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature. Deputies charged Liles in March 2013, after his then-wife, Sarah Crowley Liles, accused him of going "into a rage," then starting to assault her.
The victim told deputies that Liles "hit her with his fist, a chair, a hammer, and stabbed her with a screwdriver," according to the police report. Deputies noted finding marks around the victim's neck and over her body, including her face.
The narrative from a 2013 police report shows the allegations against Robbie Liles in a Criminal Domestic Violence case of a High and Aggravated Nature involving Liles' wife at the time. Liles was never convicted; his case was later expunged, and the records destroyed.The victim told deputies she tried to escape, but that her husband "...dragged her back inside the home," according to the police report.
Investigators said the victim was taken to the hospital by Marlboro County rescue units, and law enforcement documented the victim's injuries with photographs.
On May 22, 2013, Robbie Liles surrendered at the Marlboro County Sheriff's Office and was served with an arrest warrant for the CDVHAN charge. The investigator took Liles to the Marlboro County Detention Center and booked him into the jail.
County court records show Liles was not convicted of the charge, but his case was expunged at some point following his arrest.
TICKET ‘FLIPPIN’ IN MCBEE
When Robbie Liles left federal prison on Feb. 10, 2000, he was free from probation. The clock also started to run on both his ability to vote again and to hold public office in the future.
The South Carolina Constitution bars convicted felons from holding public office for 15 years after the convict completes any probation period following a conviction or release from prison.
In 2020, Liles decided to run for the McBee town council.
McBee Town Councilman Robbie Liles was re-elected to a second term in November 2024.An election dispute over those 2020 results prevented Liles and Mayor Glenn Odom from taking office following the election. Liles and Odom eventually took office in February 2023 after the S.C. Supreme Court upheld the town’s 2020 election results.
Liles would move into Mayor Odom’s rental home at the intersection of Juniper Street and Highway 1, just feet away from McBee Town Hall and the McBee Police Department.
Town Hall sources told Barr back in 2023 that Liles was in charge of the town’s police force, but both Liles and Mayor Odom denied those allegations when Barr asked both men about that in 2023.
McBee Mayor Glenn Odom denied that Robbie Liles was overseeing the McBee Police Department on at least two occasions when asked. Amid our 'Officer Down' investigation in March 2025 into allegations that the town imposed a ticket quota, the mayor confirmed in an interview with Queen City News that Liles was "over" the police department. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)But, during our ‘Officer Down’ investigation in early 2025, I confirmed Councilman Robbie Liles’ leadership role within the McBee Police Department.
In September 2024, McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright was cruising along Highway 151 when he clocked a white pickup truck running 53 in the town’s 25 miles an hour zone. Wright whipped his unmarked Dodge Charger around and pulled Modlin over.
Before Wright could get his patrol car shifted into park, the first of more than 60 gunshots ripped through the windshield, knocking the officer’s hat off his head. Wright slipped down into his floorboard and pulled his bulletproof vest over his head.
He survived the shooting with wounds to his arm, torso, head, and shrapnel in his hands.
OFFICER DOWN: McBee cop who survived 62 shots fired at him says town threw him out ‘like garbage’Wright contacted QCN’s Jody Barr in December 2024, asking to tell his story about how Wright believes McBee’s leadership, including his own police force, cut off all communication with him when he filed a workers’ compensation claim against the town over his injuries from the shooting.
Wright said the mayor told him he expected Wright to write at least 10 traffic tickets each day. Odom denied the allegation.
I confirmed Wright's quota allegation with two other former McBee police officers.
McBee Mayor Glenn Odom (center) confirmed Councilman Robbie Liles (left) was "over" the McBee Police Department during this March 2025 interview. Liles was standing off to the side when Odom made the statement to QCN Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr. Neither man would explain what Liles' responsibilities were as the overseer of MPD. (WJZT Photo/Ben Gauthier)Wright also provided text messages between himself and Mayor Glenn Odom, which Wright said showed evidence that the mayor imposed a ticket quota on his police force. Wright also provided text messages of what he now believes is criminal conduct he was asked to participate in by Councilman Robbie Liles and McBee PD Chief Timmy Knight.
Wright was McBee’s top ticket producer, issuing more tickets than almost all other officers combined. He said Mayor Odom would call and text him multiple times a day, asking for ticket totals and for the number of $440 fine citations he’d written.
Instead of counting the tickets on the phone, Wright started keeping a notebook with each day’s ticket total.
Former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright told QCN he maintained notebooks like this with tally marks for how many of each type of charge he filed each day. This was the book Wright had in his pocket the day he was ambushed in a traffic stop, showing what he said was red and blue ink, showing the number of tickets he wrote in McBee PD Captain Greg Block's name. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Wright provided Queen City News multiple text messages from Mayor Odom where the mayor was critical of the lack of ticket production from McBee Police Lt. Greg Block.
But Wright said Liles and Chief Knight had a plan to get the mayor off Block’s back.
“He (Liles) asked me if I could write some in Greg Block’s name, under his log in to keep the mayor off of his ass for not writing tickets,” Wright told Barr during an interview. Wright said Chief Knight also made the same request in a separate conversation.
The conversations happened in August 2024, according to Wright.
Former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright provided copies of text messages between himself and McBee Mayor Glenn Odom, where the mayor criticized Captain Greg Block's lack of ticket production. The complaints, Wright said, led to the police chief and Councilman Robbie Liles asking him to write tickets in Block's name to increase Block's ticket numbers. (Source: Jerriell Wright)Wright said he agreed to do this to help Block, whom he considered a friend.
“The mayor was not understanding that Lieutenant Block, at the time, had other responsibilities: reports, narcotics. He was over all of that. The mayor seemed to only care about writing tickets; he didn't care about all of that other stuff.”
The text messages show Lt. Block was aware of what Councilman Liles and Chief Knight asked Wright to do. On August 5, 2024, at 5:08 p.m., Block sent Wright a text with his username and password for Block’s law enforcement ticketing software.
Jerriell Wright provided this text message exchange between himself and McBee Police Captain Greg Block from August 5, 2024. The text shows Block giving Wright his login credentials for the law enforcement software that Wright said officers used to issue charging documents against people charged with crimes in town. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)That text also shows Block directing Wright what to say if anyone finds out about this: “And just say if anything goes down, you had to use my computer because your login wasn't working.” By 7:48 p.m., Wright’s text response to Block shows he’d written 10 tickets in Block’s name.
“You are the man, brother,” Block responded in text.
On August 16, 2024, at 9:06 a.m., Block sent Wright another text, “Write me some tickets.” The text contained laughing emojis, “And you see the laughing emojis. But he was dead serious,” Wright said as he read the text message during our interview.
I asked Chief Timmy Knight, Captain Greg Block, and Councilman Robbie Liles for interviews concerning the ticket flipping allegations. I did not receive a response from any of the men.
“It proves, you know, he’s (Block) in full knowledge of it. He knew what was going on, and if the lieutenant (Block) knew what was going on, the chief knew what was going on. But this proves exactly what I said, you know, I wrote some tickets in his name, under his login for him at their request, and at his request also,” Wright told Queen City News.
McBee Police Chief Timmy Knight did not respond to an interview request to allow him to address, even refute, former Officer Jerriell Knight's allegations that Knight instructed him to write tickets in Captain Greg Block's name in August 2024. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Wright said he feels used by the people he worked for and took all the risks on traffic stops so someone else could get the credit, “When I would finish mine, which I really wasn't finished yet, I would log in and write tickets for him. And this was, again, to keep the mayor off of his ass because if the 15 that I wrote for him on that particular day I spoke of earlier, had they not been in his name, then come Monday morning when the mayor does a ticket check, then you know, he probably would have had a lot to say about him not writing tickets.”
"Did you think anything was wrong with that at the time, or what went through your mind when those guys asked you to do this?” Barr asked Wright. "Well, I was asked to do that by the councilman and by the chief. So, what was I supposed to do?" Wright replied.
"When you took that directive from a council member, did you view council as a place of higher authority over the police department?" Barr asked. "Yes. And I kind of figured then that he had some kind of responsibility over the police department, but I wasn't sure. I didn't ask any questions," Wright replied.
Former McBee Police officer Jerriell Wright sits on his couch with the hat he wore during the Sept. 19, 2024, traffic stop where a man fired 62 rounds at him from a high-powered rifle. A bullet hit the brim of the hat, knocking it off Wright's head before he slid down into the floorboard and pulled his bulletproof vest over his head and "waited to die." (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Wright said he took Knight and Liles' request as a directive and he had no other choice than to comply, "Who’s higher up in the department than the chief? It could have went either way. And you know, that's a chance I wasn't willing to take. I had a family to take care of, and I wasn't willing to take that chance.”
Wright said he knew nothing of Liles’ criminal history before joining the McBee Police Department in August 2023. However, during a holiday break from the police academy in 2023, Wright said he overheard a conversation between Liles and a town maintenance worker where Liles disclosed that he'd been in trouble with the law in the past.
"They were talking about a fight and how he had that scar, and I don't remember exactly what else, but I know he was mentioned being locked up taught him a lot, and he grew up a lot. Now that much I do remember. But the way he presented himself around, I've never would have thought it. I mean, you see a scar on someone, and you think, yeah, it's a possibility they have a past, but that same possibility could have been walking out of a restaurant and somebody tried to rob them, and they’re completely innocent. So I didn’t lean one way or the other, I didn't care, still don’t," Wright said.
"But, as far as the comment Glenn Odom made when you interviewed him, that Robbie Liles is the head of the police department, that was the first I've heard of that. I knew he had something to do with it in the beginning because he was the one that handed me my equipment, but I didn't know of his past, and then I didn't know he was over the police department either," Wright told QCN.
When we interviewed Jerriell Wright the day he resigned from the McBee Police Department in January 2025, he carried all the equipment he had in his possession into the town hall to turn it in. Wright later confirmed this was the same equipment Councilman Robbie Liles had handed him, including his firearm and clips, in August 2023. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Wright said Liles handed him his duty belt, bulletproof vest, Taser, handcuffs, handgun, and clips when he joined the MPD in August 2023. Wright said he did not know Liles was a felon or had a federal firearm prohibition at the time.
QCN requested Liles' criminal records check from the S.C. Law Enforcement Division, which shows only a limited history of charges filed against someone in South Carolina. The SLED record did not include any evidence of the federal drug conspiracy conviction against Liles.
Barr read a list of charges from Liles' rap sheet to Wright.
READ: SLED'S CRIMINAL BACKGROUND RECORDS FOR MCBEE COUNCILMAN ROBBIE LILES.
09122023-SLED-BACKGROUND-CHECK-ROBBIE-LILESDownload"Everything that you just told me is a first for me….so it’s kind of – there’s no kind of out there, it’s shocking," Wright said.
Wright also didn't know what Liles' oversight of the McBee PD meant, either. Wright's guess was that although the town employs a chief, the real authority rests with an elected councilman.
"Robbie Liles is over the police department, do what Robbie Liles says to do. If you have any questions, ask Robbie Liles. Follow your chain of command, but if the chief can’t handle it, it’s going to be handled by Robbie Liles," Wright said, summarizing his opinion on what the meaning of the mayor's revelation has for MPD officers.
IS ‘OVER’ THE MCBEE POLICE FORCE
I emailed Councilman Robbie Liles' town email address to request an interview for this report and copied McBee Town Manager Kylee Watts to the communication to ensure Liles received it. Liles never responded to the interview request.
We found him walking into the May town council meeting at the town hall.
McBee Councilman Robbie Liles would not define what his oversight role is with the McBee Police Department when we found him at this town council meeting on May 5, 2025. (WJZY Photo/Ben Gaither)Liles was defiant from the start of the interview, "What? What?" the councilman said as Barr launched into a line of questioning. Here's a partial transcript from that exchange:
BARR: "What specifically does it mean when the mayor says that you're over the McBee Police Department?”
LILES: “What does that sound like, man?”
BARR: “What does that mean?”
BARR: “Given your criminal history, you're barred from possessing, transporting, having anything to do with a firearm. Are you still prohibited from possessing or owning a firearm today?”
RL: (silent stare)
BARR: “Have you ever handled or handed one to an officer here in this town?”
RL: “No…yeah, called them one-by-one give them their ARs, called them one-by-one, give them their bazookas. What you think, man?”
BARR: “Okay.”
LILES: “What’s your next one?”
BARR: “What would you say to someone who may point out that you're overseeing this town and a department that you wouldn't even be able to qualify to serve this department? What would you say to that?”
LILES: “I’d say – (laughing and walks away…)
Mayor Glenn Odom and Councilman James Linton discuss the sale price of steaks in an insert from a local newspaper as QCN attempted to interview Odom and Councilman Robbie Liles during the May town council meeting. (WJZY Photo/Ben Gathier)BARR: “Do you think that all of that –”
The exchange had moved from outside the town hall and into the hallway leading to the council chambers. Mayor Odom entered the building and ushered Liles away from our interview and up to the dais at the front of the room, where we followed and continued asking questions.
MAYOR: “Robbie, you’re holding up the meeting…”
BARR: “Do you think that it would be better if you were not involved in that police department?”
LILES: “I don’t think that’s for you to say.”
BARR: “I’m asking you the question.”
Liles and Odom sat down at the council table and turned the questioning to the mayor, who ignored every question I asked him.
BARR: “Mr. Mayor, what does it mean that Robbie Liles is over the McBee Police Department?”
MAYOR: “Charlie, you look good, boy, getting them tires done, we appreciate it.”
BARR: “Are you aware of Councilman Liles’ criminal history?”
BARR: “We've got six minutes here, I feel like we've got plenty of time, if you would answer these questions for us. Nothing?”
LILES: “Nothing here, bud.”
BARR: “What would you tell the people of McBee about what we're about to tell them?”
Neither man, or anyone else at the council table, offered any explanation or answers to the questions asked.
SUSPENDED LICENSE, SLED INVESTIGATION
Not long after I finished gathering the background records on Liles, a source told me the councilman's driver's license was suspended again. I received the same tip in 2023.
By the time I investigated and pulled Liles' driving record from the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, his license was reinstated. We did not report on the suspension as we found no newsworthy reason to do so.
McBee Town Councilman Robbie Liles gets into a pickup truck on May 15, 2025, and drives off down Highway 151. At the time, SCDMV records show Liles' driver's license was suspended. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Around the same time, I received another tip that Liles was serving on the town council as a convicted felon. On Sept. 12, 2023, I requested Liles' criminal history from SLED. It showed the felony conviction out of Chesterfield County. I also contacted the S.C. Election Commission to find out the law on felons serving in public office.
The commission referred me to the S.C. Constitution, which states a convicted felon can hold office in South Carolina 15 years past the completion of their sentence. Liles met the qualifications for office at the time he filed and ran. We determined there was no newsworthiness or any other reason to publish a report on Liles' criminal past or the license suspension at the time.
That all changed in March 2025 when Mayor Glenn Odom confirmed Liles was "over" the McBee Police Department, a department currently under state investigation.
On May 15, I went to McBee to verify the tips that Liles was driving with a suspended license. Multiple sources confirmed that Liles was driving a truck registered to Alligator Rural Water and Sewer, a water company Mayor Glenn Odom holds a contract to manage, and was performing meter reading work for Alligator.
I found Liles driving down Highway 1, across Highway 151, and into his backyard that day.
McBee Councilman Robbie Liles drives across a town sidewalk on May 15, 2025, before driving down a private driveway to enter a public highway in town. SCDMV records show Liles' driver's license was suspended at the time. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)I then documented Liles leaving town hall and the police department, getting back into Alligator Water's Chevrolet Colorado, driving across a city sidewalk, across a private driveway, and back onto Highway 151.
The SCDMV provided a copy of Liles' 10-year driving record to Queen City News the next morning, which showed that his license was suspended on Dec. 30, 2024. The reason: "Unable to Verify Insurance," according to the May 15 driving record.
Liles' driving record shows 16 driver's license suspensions, mainly for failing to show up for traffic court and failing to pay his fines. The record dates back to an April 15, 2004, suspension, where it took Liles 13 years and two months to pay a traffic ticket in Marlboro County.
Liles' license was suspended for 14 years over that Marlboro County unpaid ticket, according to the DMV record.
The latest license suspension stems from an October 2023 traffic stop in Darlington County. Liles was a sitting town councilman at the time. A trooper stopped Liles on Highway 151 near Westwood BBQ after spotting him driving with an expired license plate.
A S.C. Highway Patrol trooper stopped McBee Councilman Robbie Liles and charged him with driving with an expired license plate on Oct. 22, 2023. County court records show Liles never showed up for court, and the judge found him guilty in his absence. (Source: S.C. Highway Patrol)The tooper was willing to cut Liles a break on the $155 ticket, "I did cite you for an expired tag, $155. If you get it paid and show up to court by November the 9th at 11 o’clock at the Darlington Magistrate’s Office, I can drop that ticket for you. Just bring the new registration and sticker," the trooper said in the dash camera recording.
But, county court records show Liles never showed up for court, and the judge found him guilty. On May 5, 2025, Liles' driver's license was suspended for failing to pay the SCHP traffic ticket. Liles didn't pay the traffic ticket until Oct. 11, 2024, nearly a year after the traffic stop and his court date.
Liles got his license reinstated that same day, but it was suspended again on Dec. 30, 2024, after the DMV reported it could not verify Liles was insured.
These three images show the front page of the three SCDMV records we pulled to confirm McBee Councilman Robbie Liles' license status for this investigation. (Source: S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles)We recorded video of Councilman Liles driving on a public road again on June 4, 2025, as he arrived at a Chesterfield County Council meeting in Chesterfield, 20 miles from McBee. We again filed a request for Liles' 10-year driving record from the SCDMV.
The DMV record showed Liles' license was still suspended at the time.
McBee Councilman Robbie Liles drove to the June 2025 Chesterfield County Council meeting in this truck, the VIN number shows it belongs to the Alligator Rural Water and Sewer Company, the McBee water utility, where Mayor Glenn Odom holds a management contract to run the utility's day-to-day operations. (WJZY Photo/Ben Gathier)Liles drove up to the council meeting in a different truck this time. The Vehicle Identification Number returned to a truck registered to Alligator Rural Water and Sewer Company, the same owner of the first truck we documented Liles driving on May 15.
I emailed Liles on June 18, again asking Liles to confirm elements of our investigation, including the questions about his license suspension. Liles never responded to our inquiry.
However, on June 20, Liles texted me to say he got a message from the DMV office in Chesterfield that his license was not suspended.
Here's the copy of that text exchange:
This is the complete text exchange between QCN's Jody Barr and McBee Councilman Robbie Liles created on June 20, 2025. Liles' texts appear in gray, Barr's texts appear in blue. (Source: Jody Barr)The day Liles texted, I asked the SCDMV to clarify the date Liles' license was reinstated. The DMV could not find a date for when the reinstatement happened. I then filed another request for Liles' 10-year driving record to find out the reinstatement date and what Liles did to get his license back.
The driving record we obtained on June 23, the day our report was published, did not show when or how the DMV removed Liles' driver's license suspension. In fact, the December 2024 license suspension entry on the Liles driving record disappeared.
I asked the SCDMV press office for clarification. The agency, again, checked Liles' driving record and could not explain or find any evidence to show why the latest 10-year driving record doesn't show that December 2024 suspension, or what date the DMV lifted the suspension.
Still today, how and when the councilman's driver's license was reinstated is a mystery to the State of South Carolina.
THE SLED INVESTIGATION
Following our 'Officer Down' report in April, Jerriell Wright got a call from the State Law Enforcement Division, asking him to make a trip to their Pee Dee Region office in Florence. SLED agents wanted to interview him about what he told the public in our report.
The agents also wanted to see the text messages Wright still has on his cell phone.
SLED agents contacted Jerriell Wright a few days after our 'Officer Down' investigation aired in April 2025. Wright spent two hours interviewing with agents as part of a criminal investigation SLED opened into multiple allegations surrounding the McBee Town Hall. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)On April 11, Wright showed up in Florence and let me ride along with him as he drove to the SLED office.
"I have nothing to hide. There's nothing that I wouldn't talk about, whatever they ask, I will answer," Wright told me as we drove toward the SLED parking lot.
Wright alleged in our report that Mayor Glenn Odom implemented a ticket quota and expected McBee officers to issue no less than 10 traffic tickets each shift to cover the cost of their salaries, patrol cars, and police equipment.
"I don’t want that police department to shut down, it needs to be revamped starting from the head of the snake, who is the mayor. They need to find out if they are indeed working in a quota, which is not supposed to happen. In the end, whoever’s doing what they shouldn’t be doing, I would like for that to be brought to light, and whatever consequences for them afterward, let it happen," Wright told QCN.
Odom denied giving Wright that order.
However, during a Sept. 25, 2024, council meeting held just six days after Wright was ambushed in a traffic stop, Mayor Odom told Councilman Charlie Sutton the town would use revenue from police tickets to pay a loan, and that Jerriell Wright would fund the loan payments with his ticket production.
Former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright looks back in disgust after hearing what the mayor said about him during the Sept. 25, 2024, town council meeting. The mayor told another councilman the town needed Wright back on patrol to generate enough ticket revenue to make loan payments on new police cars. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)"Charlie, that’s five speeding tickets. Five speeding tickets (inaudible) can pay for. Jerriell can do that in 30 minutes. We’ve got to get him back on the job," Odom said in the council meeting video recording. Wright was recovering from the shooting and still had bullet fragments and shrapnel in his body at the time.
During the March 2025 town council meeting, town officials again appeared to support Wright's ticket quota allegation, while denying that a quota exists in McBee. This happened during an exchange between Mayor Odom and McBee Police Chief Timmy Knight.
Here's the partial transcript from that portion of the meeting:
MAYOR ODOM: "There again, I'll stand on, McBee’s not using something just to make the budget go or whatever with the police department. We don't make that much money netted on that."
MAYOR ODOM: "The people of McBee are happy. I was elected by the people of McBee, y’all were elected by the people of McBee, and we're going to do what they want. Outside people can come in here with their opinions, but we represent McBee, so I’ll leave it at that."
McBee Mayor Glenn Odom asked McBee Police Chief Timmy Knight whether the town had a ticket quota during the March 2025 council meeting. Knight denied a quota, then told the mayor, "If you work 12 hours, is it too much to ask for a ticket an hour?" (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Jerriell Wright was born and raised in McBee and graduated from McBee High School.
Later in the council meeting, the mayor again brought up the quota allegations, "Again, for the record, chief, do we have a quota that they got to do 10 a day?" Odom asked Chief Timmy Knight.
"No, sir,” Knight responded.
"I mean, discussion is: if you do 10 tickets a day, we pretty well break even. There again, there's no –,” the mayor was saying as Chief Knight interrupted, "If you work 12 hours, is it too much to ask for a ticket an hour?” Knight said during the exchange on the record in the council meeting.
Former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright spent two hours in an interview with SLED agents on April 11, 2025. Wright provided agents with dozens of text messages between himself and multiple McBee officials as part of SLED's criminal investigation into the town. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr)Sources inside and outside McBee confirmed that SLED agents have interviewed current and former McBee Police officers and town employees, along with former officer Wright. Agents have asked questions ranging from ticket quotas to ticket flipping, and have questioned people related to allegations stemming from the June 2024 primary elections.
We're also working to investigate allegations from the 2024 primary election. That report is forthcoming as we continue our 'Officer Down' investigation out of McBee.
The SLED investigation is ongoing.
We do not have any information on when SLED may finish its investigation into the multiple angles of allegations coming out of the one-stoplight Chesterfield County town.
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