• State begins evidence today in murder trial of Clarkton man charged as one of two who killed Chase Powell, 19, of Whiteville, in March 2002.
By BOB HIGH
Staff Writer
A three-hour session of Superior Court Thursday morning ended with a ruling that recordings of telephone calls from an Horry County, S.C., jail in 2002 could be used by the state in the first-degree murder trial of Ramel Theodore Troy.
The conversations contained several references to what the state says is the murder of 19-year-old Chase Powell, who disappeared on March 27, 2002, after driving from Whiteville to Clarkton in the edge of Bladen County.
Judge Gregory Weeks denied a defense motion to withhold the recordings made from the telephone system inside the J. Reuben Long Detention Center near Conway.