Supreme Court ruling puts 30-year-old double murder case back in spotlight

CHESTER COUNTY, N.C. — Thousands of families are being forced to listen to the details of their loved ones murders, decades after the killers went to prison.

It comes after a 2012 Supreme Court ruling said that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Now, old cases are being brought back to court so that the convicted murderers can be sentenced again, including a double murder case in Chester County that happened in 1988.

In 1988, Renee Rollings and Scotty Stephenson were reported missing. Their bodies were found 41 days later in some woods near Highway 9 in Richburg.

Authorities said on Feb. 9 1988, Theodore Harrison and Robert Moore approached the car that Rollings and Stephenson were sitting in outside a Chester convenience store. The teenagers pulled guns on them, made them drive out Highway 9, forced them into the woods, and shot them. The motive was so they could steal their car and drive down to Florida.

“It’s almost unbearable. After 30 years of pain it never goes away,” Scotty Stephenson’s mother, Kay Stephenson, said.

On Monday, one of those teens, Harrison, now a 46-year-old man, walked back into court for his re-sentencing hearing.

Chester County Solicitor Randy Newman said taking on the re-sentencing case has been a huge challenge, especially when it comes to finding witnesses.

“It’s been difficult. I mean, I was a teenager when these folks pled guilty,” Newman said.

The judge could do anything from setting both men free to sentencing them to life again.

The hearing will continue on Friday.

A sentencing decision is expected Friday or early next week.

There are 15 cases in South Carolina and about 90 in North Carolina where sentencing will have to do be done all over again because of the Supreme Court’s decision.

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