WTOC-TV: Savannah, Beaufort, SC, News, Weather & Sports Solicitor Duffie Stone uses technology to target career criminals

As the 14th Circuit Solicitor, Duffie Stone wants to keep career criminals off the streets.

To help with the mission, Stone hired crime analyst, Dylan Hightower. With his training through the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Hightower is allowed access to SLED's resources, putting millions of dollars worth of information from around the country at his fingertips.

"I wanted to know within 24 hours of arrest who these people are, who their confederates are and that's the information we just can't get from a criminal record," said Stone. "It takes a little bit more information than you're standard wrap sheet. We need to know about the facts underlying the convictions, we need to know about their gang affiliations."

Stone says the information can make all of the difference in keeping career criminals behind bars.

"Information that we can use to show who these career criminals are and justify the sentence we're asking for," said Stone. "We have to go into court and prove our case but we also have to prove what type of sentence we're asking for and in many of these cases, we're asking for sentences of life in prison. We need to be able to show why. It's not enough for me to label career criminals, I have to prove it."

Stone says this information really paid off in the case of Terry Swanger, who was charged with murder in Jasper County.

"We knew he beat his ex-girlfriend to death but we didn't know exactly how he did it," said Stone.

But he says using information from SLED's database, they were able to make a strong case based on his previous domestic violence convictions.

"In each one of these instances he beat the person, choked them and stomped them," said Stone. "With that information, we were able to ask SLED to photograph the boots Terri Swanger wore at the time of arrest and send them to the pathologist."

They were able to make a positive match and Swanger was sentenced to life in prison.

Stone is the only prosecutor in the state to hire a SLED trained crime analyst.

Stone says with the work of their career criminal team and Hightower, they are also reducing the backlog of pending cases.

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