Solicitor eyes ‘jamming’ technology after inmate used illegal cell phone to hire hitman

FORT MILL, S.C. — A smuggled cell phone nearly cost a local mother her life.

The Fort Mill Police Department says a hitman forced his way into her house and tried to kill her, and the hit was orchestrated by a state prisoner using an illegal cell phone.

Investigators say the victim and her baby were inside their home at a Fort Mill apartment complex in 2021 when a man named Jerry Kinard tricked her into opening the door.

“He managed to steal mail from her mailbox and came and said, ‘I received your mail, I want to get it back to you,’” said Fort Mill Police Chief Bryan Zachary. “She opened the door, and he made his way in.”

Prosecutors say Kinard is a hitman, hired “indirectly” by a woman named Amaiya Givens.

According to authorities in Fort Mill, Givens was jealous of the victim and used her contacts to get to a South Carolina prisoner named Preston Hicks. Prosecutors say Hicks used an illegal cell phone from behind bars to put out the hit.

York County Solicitor Kevin Brackett says Kinard assaulted the victim, but she managed to get out of the apartment with her baby.

“She was a strong woman, she maintained her presence of mind, she didn’t panic,” Brackett told Channel 9′s Tina Terry.

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Robert Munn lived nearby when the attack happened, and he told Terry that it’s a shame someone could arrange this from prison.

“They don’t need to be talking on their cell phone, making it easy on them,” Munn said.

Brackett says the problem could be solved by jamming cell phone signals, but a federal law prevents the government from interfering with radio signals.

“It’s very serious, and it’s very easily solved,” Brackett said. “The law that prevents prisons from jamming cell phones dates back to 1934. There were no cell phones in 1934.”

The South Carolina legislature passed House Bill 4002 in both chambers, and it could be ratified this week. It would increase the penalties for prisoners who use cell phones and those who smuggle them in. It would also allow new technology to try to stop those calls.

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Brackett says the best solution is jamming cell signals at prisons, but that will take an act from Congress.

All of the suspects charged in the attempted hit were convicted, and they’re now in prison.

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