FAIRFIELD COUNTY -

A 16-year old murder case came to a close this week as the man accused of the shooting death of Audre Ann Belton of Winnsboro was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

According to a press release from the Sixth Circuit Solicitor’s Office:

‘Curtis Lee Elgin of Winnsboro was sentenced this past Thursday night to 50 years in the South Carolina Department of Corrections after having been found guilty by a jury of Murder in the shooting death of Audre Ann Belton, also of Winnsboro, in February 1993.

‘Belton was last seen by a coworker on her thirty-fifth birthday, February 8, 1993, leaving Whirlpool, her place of employment in Richland County, at the end of her shift at 11:00 p. m.

‘Her body was discovered in her bedroom in her home on Golf Course Road just outside Winnsboro on February 15, 1993.

‘Her sister and her brother in-law discovered her body when they went to check on her after not being able to contact her for several days. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) agents processed the scene. Belton was wearing the same clothes she had worn to work the day she was last seen.

‘She had been shot three times in the head and once in the lower abdomen with a .22 caliber revolver. Signs of a struggle were observed in the home. Several bullet holes were found in the walls. Blood was found in several locations within the home. Two fired bullets were recovered in the home, and three fired bullets were recovered from Belton's body during an autopsy.

‘In June 1993 a .22 caliber revolver was discovered just off Dunn Street not far from Belton's home.

‘The revolver contained six fired cartridge cases in its cylinder. A SLED firearms examiner concluded that one of the fired bullets found in the home, one of the fired bullets recovered from Belton's body, and all six of the fired cartridge cases found in the revolver were fired by the revolver. The revolver Waf traced to a local business by whom Elgin had been employed. Belton had been a customer of the business.

‘The Fairfield County Sheriff's Office and SLED investigated the case for months without developing sufficient evidence to charge anyone with the murder.

‘In June 1996 investigators received information from an inmate in the Fairfield County Detention Center who was then incarcerated with Elgin at that facility. The inmate told investigators that Elgin confessed to the inmate that Elgin had committed the murder.

‘In December 2004 investigators tracked down another man who then lived in Rochester, New York, who had been in the same cell with Elgin and the other inmate in 1996 and who also overhead the confession.

‘Both testified during the trial. Based upon the information provided by these cellmates. an arrest warrant charging Elgin with the murder was obtained, and Elgin was arrested on April 11, 2005.

‘The case was investigated by the Fairfield County Sheriff's Office and the State Law Enforcement Division. Elgin was prosecuted by Solicitor Doug Barfield. Gwendlyne Young Smalls represented Elgin. Judge Brooks P. Goldsmith presided.’