Retired SLED agent and author Rita Shuler has published a book on the May 27, 1978, murder of Walterboro resident Elaine Fogle.
Fogle was found that Sunday morning dead in her home on Lemacks Street by her roommate and a friend about 1:45 a.m. Fogle was covered in blood, partially nude on the living room floor, severely beaten and sexually assaulted. She had been strangled with a fire poker bent around her neck.
Her death began an investigation that lasted for 37 years, finally solved due to the efforts of Shuler and now Chief Deputy Gean Johnson. Their investigation resulted in the arrest of Willie Butterfield, who is still held in a mental institution.
The book chronicles the various facts, evidence and efforts of local law enforcement and SLED to solve the murder over the years.
At the time of the murder, Shuler was supervisor of the SLED Forensics Photography Lab. In 1978, all photos were on film (digital photography had not yet been invented). Shuler had been with SLED for just seven months when she received the film from the crime scene from the Walterboro Police Department. (She worked for SLED for 24-and-a-half years before retiring in 2001.)
“A strange sensitivity and visual moment came over me as I viewed the photographs. I noticed that Elaine and I had very similar taste in dress,” Shuler said in the book. “She had personal items in her home that I had in my home — country things, a butter churn, stone jugs and a hand-operated corn sheller.”
That connection with Elaine stayed with Shuler over the years. She was persistent, determined to one day find her killer, even after her retirement in 2001. But while the evidence existed in 1978, a way to identify an unknown suspect didn’t. Linking the Fogle evidence with new technology was not successful until Shuler’s and Johnson’s investigation in 2015.
When Johnson started his cold case investigation, Police Chief Wade Marvin gave Shuler permission to help. That permission gave her access to records and evidence she didn’t previously have. And together, she and Johnson worked together to re-examine the case files and apply today’s technology to the evidence.
(About the author: Lt. Rita Y. Shuler was a supervisory a special agent of the Forensic Photography Department of the S.C. Law Enforcement Division (SLED) fore 24-1/2 years. She interfaced with the attorney general’s office, solicitors and investigators, providing photographic evidence assistance in the prosecution of thousands of criminal cases.
Her interest in photography started as a hobby at the age of nine with a Kodak Brownie camera.
Before her career as a forensic photographer, she worked in the medical field as a radiologic technologist for 12 years. Her interest in forensic science evolved when she x-rayed homicide victims to assist with criminal investigations.
Shuler received her basic police training and certification as a law enforcement officer for S.C. at the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy in Columbia and her advanced specialized law enforcement photography training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.)
