Seneca Man Pleads Guilty In General Sessions Court To Two Counts Of Murder In Utica Mill Hill Homicide

(Seneca, SC)—Earlier today in Oconee General Sessions Court, 20 year old Steven Lee Reynolds pled guilty to two counts of Murder and one count each of Armed Robbery and Malicious Injury to Personal Property as part of a negotiated plea deal. 

Judge Lawton McIntosh was sentenced to 35 years in prison to be served in a South Carolina Department of Corrections facility with no possibility of parole. The judge also ordered Reynolds to undergo a psychological evaluation upon arriving at the SCDC facility and receive any treatment necessary. 

Reynolds was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the murder charges, 30 years for the armed robbery charge and five years for the malicious injury to personal property charge with those sentences to run concurrently. Reynolds was also given credit for 437 days time served. 

The murder and armed robbery charges were in relation to the shooting deaths of Tim Caldwell and David Tranah during an armed robbery in September of 2018 at an address on Padgett Street on the Utica Mill Hill at what was known as the Compound. 

According to Assistant Solicitor Lindsay Simmons, Reynolds had gone to the incident location to collect on a drug debt and the only shots fired were fired by Mr. Reynolds. 

The Malicious Injury to Personal Property charge was due to a separate incident in which Reynolds was charged with damaging to a vehicle that belonged to the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office.

According to Assistant Solicitor Simmons, deputies from the the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office who were involved in the investigation fully supported the plea deal.