Heated rematch: Beaufort Co. sheriff’s candidates trade jabs as campaign winds down
Beaufort County is just days away from announcing the results in what has been a contentious rematch for sheriff.
Incumbent Sheriff P.J. Tanner faces Joey “JoJo” Woodward Jr., a former captain with the agency and investigator with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, in a campaign that has seen the candidates trade barbs and question each other’s qualifications.
When the two ran against each other in 2018, Tanner won with 55% of the vote.
The candidates, who each have decades of law enforcement experience, are running as Republicans in Tuesday’s primary election. The winner will appear on the November ballot. There is no Democrat running in the general election.
One key point of tension between them was when Woodward announced his initial bid for sheriff four years ago, he said he was running because Tanner was allegedly looking “to get the U.S. marshal’s job in Columbia.”
Tanner refuted the claim, calling it an “absolute lie” and “garbage.” He said Woodward lied several times to Tanner while working under him on whether he was going to run for sheriff.
Another issue is the Sheriff’s Office’s relationship with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office under Duffie Stone, the top prosecutor of Beaufort County and four other counties in the circuit. It’s a strained relationship at times, spilling out into the public as recently as last year, when Tanner accused Stone of using a growing case backlog to get more money for his agency, a charge Stone denied.
Tanner has called Woodward a puppet candidate for Stone.
“JoJo is carrying Duffie Stone’s water,” Tanner said shortly after Woodward announced he was running again. “He’s being handled by a bunch of people who don’t like me because I don’t play games with them.”
After Woodward lost his bid for sheriff in 2018, he went to work as an investigator for the Solicitor’s Office. Investigators help prosecutors locate and re-interview witnesses, assist with trial preparation, and serve subpoenas, among other things. He mostly worked on Jasper County cases.
“These lawyers are working hard. ... I still think Sheriff Tanner needs to have a better relationship with Duffie Stone,” Woodward said.
His time with the Solicitor’s Office has raised questions, including why he was at the scene of the June 2021 murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, the son and wife of now-jailed Hampton lawyer Alex Murdaugh.
In the days following the murders, Woodward was seen in photos printed by the Post and Courier newspaper at the murder scene with Murdaugh’s younger brother, John Marvin Murdaugh, and other investigators from the Solicitor’s Office. Their presence sparked controversy online about preserving evidence and raised questions about why Stone did not immediately recuse himself — something he later did.
When asked Wednesday why he was at the double-murder scene, Woodward said he would not discuss the details of an active investigation but did say that nothing he did was “unethical.”
“I work with Duffie Stone and I was working with SLED (the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division), point blank,” Woodward said. “I wasn’t touching evidence, I wasn’t picking up evidence.”
“He (Tanner) knows that — would it be alright if all his investigators talked about what they’re doing at crime scenes? No. So why would it be for me?”
Woodward pointed out that Tanner knew the Murdaugh family before the 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach and accepted a campaign contribution from Maggie and Alex Murdaugh for the 2018 sheriff’s election. Tanner said he reported that contribution.
“He should’ve never been there,” Tanner said about Woodward’s presence at the Murdaugh murder scene. “I’m hoping that hasn’t tainted the investigation.”
Tanner defends his record
As sheriff of Beaufort County since 1999, most residents know the name P.J. Tanner.
Tanner said he is most proud of advocating for increased salaries for deputies who make approximately $50,000 annually at entry-level. Those raises took effect in January 2022.
“The most important position in law enforcement is patrol,” Tanner said.
The raises were well-deserved for officers who, he said, stepped up to the plate, especially after the country went into lockdown following the initial outbreaks of COVID-19 when not much was known about the virus.
“I know how hard they worked,” Tanner said. “They didn’t bat an eye and took the risk of bringing this virus home to their wives, children and parents. None said ‘no’ to me, so I won’t let people talk bad about first responders.”
Woodward said the timing of the pay increase for officers is suspicious because “it’s election time.”
“You should’ve been doing that a year ago, two years ago, and then you probably wouldn’t be in the manpower problems you’re in,” Woodward said.
“I’ve been a cop all my life, we don’t get paid a lot of money to put our life on the line.”
Tanner said he was especially proud of the international accreditation of the agency, its polygraph unit and police dispatch. With that accreditation also comes the accreditation of the Sheriff’s Office forensic services lab, which has allowed for further technological advancement and the ability to conduct further testing on evidence.
“When it comes to science and technology, I’m going to get all I can,” he said. “That’s just smart policing because it is important to give a jury the experts. Technology in court is imperative.”
In 2012, the Sheriff’s Office started looking into a communication system to give residents accurate and clear information. Since then, the Sheriff’s Office has employed its Nixle communication system that residents and media can sign up for to get updates via email, text or app alerts. The system notifies people about accidents and traffic management, storm and weather information and also tells people about police activity.
After Hurricane Matthew tore through the area in 2016, residents were using Facebook as a guide to let them know where to go and when it was safe to return, but that information wasn’t always accurate, Tanner said. Today the system has over 44,000 subscribers, according to Maj. Bob Bromage, a spokesperson with the Sheriff’s Office.
In 2018, a critique used against him by Woodward was that he was a ”reactive sheriff” while Tanner maintained at that time that he was proud of his agency’s response to the storm, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
“It’s not free, we pay for it,” Tanner said. “The more people that sign up, the more it costs but that information keeps people informed in real time. In Hurricanes, you get it and you trust it.”
Focus on violent crime rates
Woodward has said Tanner doesn’t do enough to combat violent crime in Beaufort County.
Data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System shows violent crimes have actually decreased in recent years, according to previous reporting from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
According to FBI crime statistics, reported to the agency by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, violent crimes — homicides, sexual assaults, aggravated assaults — have decreased in recent years. Property crimes have also decreased, the data show.
Still, a recent rash of shootings in the county has left many concerned, and Woodward said he believes crime is rising in unincorporated parts of the county.
One thing the two can agree on is that more needs to be done to help get cases moving through the courts. When things were put on hold during the pandemic, it created a backlog of nearly 6,000 criminal cases that needed to be heard in court, the newspaper has reported.
“We’ve got to look at our criminal justice system. ... Repairs must be made and in a timely fashion,” Tanner said.
The public’s involvement and telling police what they know is crucial to making arrests and building a case that the police can take to prosecutors, Tanner said. Tips that come into anonymous tips lines like Crime Stopper of the Lowcountry are helping, he said.
“When you’ve got a person out on bond on a regular basis, people are going to think, ‘I’m not calling the police, he’s back,’” Tanner said. “If they don’t see results, they don’t get involved.”
Of the 1,558 weapons-related charges filed by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office since 2010, at least 363, or 23%, were still waiting to be heard in court, according to the latest available data from the agency. Of those crimes, 65% were committed by repeat offenders.
A solution that the Sheriff’s Office is working on is having a staff attorney, begin prosecuting DUI cases to help “get rid of the backlog.” Tanner said he thinks another solution would be to hold more court sessions in the area. Until that takes place, he said, more and more cases will pile up.
Woodward touts ‘fresh ideas’
Joey “JoJo” Woodward Jr. is no stranger to the people of Beaufort County either.
After an unsuccessful bid for sheriff in 2018, he went on to work as an investigator for the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office under Solicitor Stone. In that election, he captured a majority of the vote in Bluffton, winning 14 of the town’s 16 precincts, according to previous reporting.
“I only campaigned for 10 weeks, he had been sheriff for 20 years,” Woodward said. “That tells me that lots of people want change in Beaufort County.”
Before that, in his role as a captain of the Sheriff’s Office’s Southern Enforcement Branch, Woodward aided the Hilton Head Special Enforcement Unit and in drug investigations. In 2005, when he was promoted to Lieutenant, he was on the Beaufort/Jasper Multi-Agency Drug Task Force, and is currently co=chair of the Lowcountry Human Trafficking Task Force.
Woodward said he wants to boost the “low” morale in the Sheriff’s Office.
“I want to bring new leadership and new inspiration to the men and women in that Sheriff’s Office,” Woodward said. “If we don’t change the culture, officers will not come no matter what the pay is. A lot of the officers leaving the Sheriff’s Office are endorsing me.”
Tanner said most of the officers supporting Woodward were fired from their posts.
“JoJo is being driven by former disgruntled employees at the Sheriff’s Office,” Tanner said. “If his plan to fill vacancies is to hire in bulk all the people I fired then it is a bad plan and it’s all because of desperation.”
Woodward said he has “fresh ideas and perspective” to bring to the agency, including task forces to deal with drug offenses and solve shootings in the area and wants to create a police substation in Sun City. The substation would offer residents there a “chance to go file police reports,” he said. Additionally, he wants to unite with other law enforcement agencies in the area, increase community policing and get better pay for officers.
When it comes to prosecution and getting cases through the court system, Woodward said his work in the Solicitor’s Office afforded him a unique perspective and made him a better law enforcement officer.
“Those men and women in the Solicitor’s Office have a tough job just as well as police officers,” he said. “I encourage that relationship, that’s what makes it all work. Working with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office has made me more well-rounded, it’s not just locking somebody up.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2022 at 5:15 AM.
