South Carolina deputies suspected a man was killed in a hit-and-run. An oil trail led them down a darker path.

It was just after 1 a.m. on May 7, 2023, when authorities responded to a reported road accident on a secluded dead-end street in Greenwood, South Carolina.

At the edge of the nearby woods, they would find 46-year-old Davis McClendon‘s body. But what they saw at first was on the road itself: a shirt, a shoe and a mangled BMW 5 Series sedan.

After first responders had locked everything down, Greenwood County Sheriff’s Investigator Patrick Durkin arrived to begin photographing the scene.

Patrick Durkin: And there was significant damage to the fender.

Patrick Durkin: The front driver’s side wheel was turned slightly –

A HIT-AND-RUN OR A PLANNED ATTACK?

Whatever had transpired at this deserted crossroads, Durkin’s job was to freeze it in time. First responders had thought Davis McClendon’s injuries seemed consistent with having been hit by a vehicle, though no other vehicle relating to the collision was there. They’d found McClendon’s body about 50 feet away from the BMW, leading them to suspect he’d been outside his car when he was hit.

Patrick Durkin: There was no rain or anything that would potentially wash anything away. So, um, the main thing I focused on … was the vehicle.

Durkin tells “48 Hours: correspondent Anne-Marie Green he noticed some strange damage to the BMW.

Patrick Durkin: Usually when we would … you’d think of a normal fender bender —   

Anne-Marie Green: Yeah.

Patrick Durkin: — it would just kinda be pressed into it. And this was torn back, like a tuna can in a sense.

It had made authorities wonder if it was a hit-and-run or something more sinister. The airbags were out, and a phone was on the front passenger seat. Durkin saw more debris in the road, but nothing particularly telling. 

Ronny Powell: The assumption was that he was struck by a vehicle.

Investigator Ronny Powell from the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office says authorities had learned more by speaking to two women at the scene: Meredith Haynie and Megan McGovern, who’d called 911. McGovern often babysat for Haynie’s three children.

Ronny Powell: They … provided statements of what they saw and what had occurred … all night long.

Anne-Marie Green: What did Meredith say?

Ronny Powell: She pretty much gave a summary of the whole backstory … that she had been dating Davis.

Haynie had told the authorities that McClendon left a club they’d been in that night, calling her minutes later from the road, saying he was parked at the intersection of Avid Road and Sawgrass Place. When he’d put her on hold and then failed to come back on the line, Haynie was worried and got a ride there from McGovern. It was McGovern, the babysitter, who’d gotten out of her car and was the first to see McClendon’s body.

DAVIS MCCLENDON WAS “EVERYONE’S BEST FRIEND”

Davis McClendon was the ultimate people person without an enemy in the world say his friends Chip Funderbunk, Zach Calhoun and Johnny Coats.

Anne-Marie Green: That news must have been stunning.

Chip Funderbunk: Yeah, it was devastating. It was. It was crushing.

Chip Funderbunk: Everybody loved Davis. He was just awesome.

Zach Calhoun: He – he — he loved BIG!

Johnny Coats: And what Zach said. He was everyone’s best friend.

Zach Calhoun: He was.

Johnny Coats: He loved everyone.

 But none of them could remember McClendon ever mentioning the specifics of his love life. Not until he met Meredith Haynie.

Zach Calhoun: He told me that he had met somebody and they had just kind of been chatting and um you know enjoying getting to know each other … Seemed like a positive thing, for sure.

Calhoun says McClendon had gone through a divorce, but the end of his marriage hadn’t done anything to weaken his devotion as a father and a friend — even to the residents of the retirement home where he worked.

Meredith Haynie: He was the most empathetic person I’ve ever met.

More than four months before McClendon died, on the night of Dec. 23, 2022, Haynie was at that club, celebrating her 39th birthday with her best friends. She says they were wearing their worst Christmas sweaters when the handsome stranger struck up a conversation.

Meredith Haynie:  Then I think he texted on Christmas Day and then the next day, and then the next.

Anne-Marie Green: And you just kept on talking.

Meredith Haynie: Mm-hmm.

Until meeting McClendon, she says she’d been keeping her head down. Just about six months earlier, Haynie had left her husband of 10 years — a local auto body shop owner named Bud Ackerman — and she was struggling to balance parenting their three kids and her job as a grammar school teacher. She says she knew getting involved with someone new would not be easy.

Anne-Marie Green: Was there any hesitancy about moving forward with this?

Meredith Haynie: There, I mean, there was.

She says first McClendon wanted to make sure she had no intention of reconciling her marriage.

Meredith Haynie: He didn’t want to be the reason that, you know, we didn’t get our family back together. So, we made sure from the get-go that that wasn’t going to be an issue and it just — It just happened.

They would have less than six months together.

The night of McClendon’s death, at the site, Durkin noticed something beyond the strangeness of the crashed car and Davis’s distance from it.

Anne-Marie Green (with Durkin at crash site): Could you start to guess … what may have happened? How it was hit?

There was an oil slick in the road.

Anne-Marie Green: (pointing at the stain in the road): It’s still here.

Patrick Durkin: Just over … a year later … it’s, it’s still here. … but there was a number of footprints and … and some tire tracks that were leading away from this oil stain.

Anne-Marie Green: And what did that tell you when you saw it?

Patrick Durkin: Well, we knew that there was, some type of impact to the vehicle. And then we knew there was, uh, oil and — and tire marks that left from here.

It looked like evidence from the vehicle that hit Davis.

Anne-Marie Green: You guys are looking around and you realize the oil continues …

Patrick Durkin: You could see … it was very obvious that there was tire marks that … had had gone back down the road and kinda turned around …

Back where the tire tracks seemed to show a vehicle had turned around, investigators had found oil spatters about a foot up on a streetlight post.

And from there, there was a trail of oil that had led down the road into the distance.

Anne-Marie Green: It’s breadcrumbs, basically.

Patrick Durkin: In a manner of speaking.

Ronny Powell: You know, we just have to view the investigation … and — and see what evidence is there and see where it leads us to.

INVESTIGATORS FOLLOW THE OIL TRAIL AND A HUNCH

Investigator Ronny Powell says by the time authorities started following that oil trail from the crash site, they had a solid hunch where it might lead. Davis McClendon’s girlfriend Meredith Haynie had told them she’d suspected where he had been going when he left her at the bar that night: to meet her estranged husband Bud Ackerman.

And it turns out the oily evidence led right to Ackerman’s parents’ house. He’d been living there since separating from Haynie about a year earlier.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (body cam):  … Sheriff’s office.

BUD ACKERMAN (walks towards deputy): Yes, sir.

Authorities’ body cameras were rolling.

Ronny Powell: He kind of walked up, um, and almost was expecting us.

Bud Ackerman and his father were both standing near the garage.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (body cam): Are there some … kids here?

BUD ACKERMAN: Yeah.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY: OK. Whose kids are they?

BUD ACKERMAN: Mine.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY: Yours and who?

BUD ACKERMAN: Uh, my wife.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY: OK …

Ackerman had spent the day with his three children at a local festival. He and his wife Meredith Haynie had a custody arrangement and it was his night with the kids. But in the driveway, authorities noticed his white Ford F-250 pickup with oil leaking from the undercarriage. They also noticed a crack in the grille and other evidence that suggested the vehicle had hit someone.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (body cam): … that’s a palm mark.

Investigators turned to Ackerman.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY: Do you have your ID on you?

BUD ACKERMAN: Uh, I do not.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY:  Just step over here for me.

Authorities say Ackerman referred them to his attorney. But from speaking with Haynie, they learned she had a contentious relationship with her soon-to-be ex-husband and came to suspect a jealous Bud Ackerman had mowed Davis McClendon down.

Looking at the scene, they deduced McClendon had been standing outside his BMW, as shown in this CBS News animation based on their investigation. They suspect Ackerman’s pickup truck sideswiped the sedan and hit McClendon, carrying him on the vehicle’s grille and depositing his body across the road.

Haynie says Ackerman had been upset since reaching out to her days earlier when he found out she was dating McClendon.

Meredith Haynie: He’d text me.

Anne-Marie Green: What did he text you?

Meredith Haynie: He said something about “Meredith, how could you”…

Anne-Marie Green: What was your reaction to that text?

Meredith Haynie: I think it was hurt. Like I was, I felt bad because it — I just don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. I don’t like people to be hurt, so I felt bad.

What had begun years earlier as a promising marriage that would bear three kids, had fallen apart.

Meredith Haynie: He was a good father … He was a really good dad.

Bud Ackerman was from a prominent local family. And he was a business owner. But Haynie says, his work had become stressful.

Meredith Haynie: I started to notice … like some depression and things like that, um, that I’ve never seen before.

She says he started drinking a lot and the more he drank, she says, the more unpredictable he became.

Meredith Haynie: There was … screaming, cussing.

Anne-Marie Green: You … felt threatened?

Meredith Haynie: Absolutely.

Haynie says he never laid a hand on her but destroyed her sense of self.

Meredith Haynie: The house was never clean enough. There were never … enough groceries … It was so loud and vulgar. … It was very degrading. 

Then she says she noticed her husband was starting to become paranoid. She remembers being in her closet one day and noticing a strange pillow.

Meredith Haynie: He had cut a hole in it.

According to Haynie, there was a hidden camera inside.

Meredith Haynie: And then I started finding more of ’em …

Anne-Marie Green: What other places did you find the cameras?

Meredith Haynie: : Oh, um, there was one hidden in our dresser that faced the bed and … one in a bush in the front yard … and he put ’em in all the kids’ rooms. 

They separated in the spring of 2022. 

Meredith Haynie: I could breathe. I could be me again.

Haynie says the separation seemed to help Ackerman, too — that he’d stopped drinking and kept going to church with her and the kids. But by then she’d decided it was too late.

Meredith Haynie: When I was done, I was done.

And starting again with someone new seemed like a distant dream, Haynie says, until that night Davis McClendon sauntered up and sat down in her life. They’d tried to keep things low-key at first. Haynie says she never wanted to rub Ackerman’s nose in it.

Anne-Marie Green: So what did you all do?

Meredith Haynie: We would go out of town.

But Haynie says they knew they couldn’t sneak around forever and it had started seeming like her new relationship with Davis was a forever kind of thing.

Meredith Haynie: We had talked about sitting on the porch, rocking chairs at 80 … and it was just a different kind of relationship.

But after Ackerman found out, there were new complications.

Anne-Marie Green: He accused you of cheating.

Meredith Haynie: Yeah.

Anne-Marie Green: Even though you were weeks away from your divorce —

Meredith Haynie: Right.

Haynie says Ackerman actually called McClendon and asked him to back off until the divorce was official.

Anne-Marie Green: What was Davis’s reaction to that request?

Meredith Haynie: I think … he agreed, but then we talked about it and decided that was just giving him another little piece of control.

And on the night McClendon died, she says Ackerman seemed out of control. Back at his parents’ house, investigators now had a warrant and were finding more clues that Ackerman had been at the crash site.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (bodycam showing trail into house): Oily footprints. Oily footprints …

At about 6:30 a.m. on May 7, 2023, Bud Ackerman was arrested. He would be charged with the murder of Davis McClendon.

Ronny Powell: We think there’s enough evidence at the scene to — to prove of what occurred.

Anne-Marie Green: So, by the end of the night, you already have someone in custody.

Ronny Powell: Yes.

Anne Marie Green: What’s left to do?

Ronny Powell: Well, that’s just the beginning …

Because it turns out Ackerman did have a story to tell. He says McClendon was standing near the middle of a dark road. Ackerman says he didn’t see McClendon until it was too late and that hitting him had been an accident. And Ackerman’s team says they can prove it.

WHAT BUD ACKERMAN’S PICKUP TRUCK REVEALED

Investigators are confident they could prove Bud Ackerman’s truck had hit and killed Davis McClendon. But they knew proving Ackerman had done it on purpose might be harder.

Ronny Powell: Building a case starts from that night …

And when investigators looked at that night, they learned Ackerman had been tracking McClendon and Haynie’s whereabouts for hours.

Ronny Powell: He was trying to find them that night … and he was — was not happy about this whole situation.

Using security video, phone records, and even data from Ackerman’s own truck, authorities built a timeline. They began with Haynie’s phone, said Lt. Matthew Womack of the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office.

Lt. Matthew Womack: We were able to extract the information such as the calls and the texts.

There was a slew of calls and text messages Ackerman had made to Haynie leading up to the collision. At 8:54 p.m., Ackerman texts Haynie:  “Why do you hate me? I just don’t understand?”

She doesn’t respond to him. She’s out with McClendon at a local restaurant —

Meredith Haynie: We went to dinner at Break on the Lake.

Ronny Powell: We see Davis and Meredith you know having dinner … 

 — and being interrupted by Ackerman’s attempts to reach her.

Anne-Marie-Green: What was the Facetime conversation like …?

Meredith Haynie: Where are you? Who are you with? Why are you doing this to me?

Anne-Marie-Green: Did you tell him where you were?

Meredith Haynie: I feel like at — at some point in the conversation either he could tell where I was because of what’s around me or I finally did tell him. It was one or the other.

Anne-Marie-Green: So at that point he knows that you’re out with Davis?

Meredith Haynie: Mm-hmm.

While Haynie continued her date with McClendon, security cameras catch Ackerman at 10:40 p.m., arriving at a popular Greenwood club called Key West.

Ronny Powell: You could see Bud … You know he’s talking to people, interacting … consuming alcohol.

The video shows Ackerman spent about an hour-and-a-half at Key West, then called Haynie again.

Anne-Marie-Green: How did he sound on the phone?

Meredith Haynie: Intoxicated.

Anne-Marie-Green: What’s an intoxicated Bud sound like?

Meredith Haynie: Vulgar.

Soon after midnight, Ackerman had left Key West. About a half hour later, cameras show Ackerman’s truck circling in front of Break on the Lake. But by then, Haynie and McClendon were no longer at the restaurant.

 Ronny Powell: You could see his vehicle drive through the parking lot as if he’s looking for ’em.

Womack says before long investigators would learn just how far Ackerman had gone that night to find Haynie and McClendon. Though Ackerman himself wasn’t talking, critical information would emerge from another digital witness: his truck.

Womack says in some cars and trucks, the “infotainment systems,” as they’re known, store detailed information about how the vehicles are being driven. Womack demonstrated in a similar model to Ackerman’s Ford F-250 pickup.

Lt. Matthew Womack (looking at a monitor in the pickup truck with Green): So on Bud’s vehicle … they were able to pull a significant amount of information … This is just a little snippet … You’re talking just in — in a 24-hour time period, it’s over 3,000 events …

Events, including snap measurements of speed, acceleration, and brake pressure. Ackerman’s onboard computer even pinged public Wi-Fi’s it passed. Investigators learned that Ackerman had actually driven by Haynie’s house and onto McClendon’s street that night. But while he was driving around looking for them, ironically they had moved to the Key West Club he had just left.

Meredith Haynie: When Davis decides to call Bud … He walked out the back of the bar.

It was 12:51 a.m.

Meredith Haynie: A few minutes passed and I went out there to check on him and he was gone.

Anne-Marie-Green: Did he think he could bring the temperature down?

Meredith Haynie: Mm-hmm.

Records show McClendon called her minutes later.

Anne-Marie-Green: And what was that conversation?

Meredith Haynie: “Where are you?” … And that’s when he told me that he was going to meet Bud.

Womack says other “infotainment system” data shows that at a bit past 1 a.m., McClendon and Ackerman had their fatal encounter.

Lt. Matthew Womack (in the pickup truck with Green): And we can tell there was actually an event … at 1:11 a.m. on May the 7th.

They say Ackerman hit the brakes hard.

Lt. Matthew Womack: We could narrow it down to tenths of seconds of when the collision occurred.

And according to the computer, seconds after the collision, Ackerman’s truck had stopped.

Lt. Matthew Womack: At that point in time, Bud’s opening the door … He opens the door before he shifts it to park.

Womack thinks Ackerman got out of his truck, which was probably leaking from the collision — remember that puddle of oil in the road near the victim.

Lt. Matthew Womack: Then he closes the door, then he gets back in. And then it’s shifted to drive at that point in time.

Then, say authorities, Ackerman turns his truck around near the lamp post. He then drives away, leaking an oil trail all the way to his parents’ driveway.

Lt. Matthew Womack (pointing at monitor in the pickup truck with Green): Right here his phone becomes unavailable, the ignition turned off and it disconnected from his device.

Anne-Marie-Green: What does that tell you?

Lt. Matthew Womack: That’s when he got home and got out …

Lt. Matthew Womack: It started to paint a very clear picture.

But Ackerman’s attorney Jack Swerling paints a different picture.

Jack Swerling: I don’t think he intended to run Davis McClendon over.

Jack Swerling: There’s no indication that he was an aggressive or violent individual …

Nor, says Swerling, is there much to indicate his client was drunk that night.

SHERIFF’S DEPUTY (bodycam): Let me ask you this, can I get you to step with me over here for me please?

BUD ACKERMAN: Alright.

None of the cops who arrested him reported he seemed tipsy.

Jack Swerling: The only one that said he was intoxicated was Meredith.

Anne-Marie-Green: Was he stalking them that night?

Jack Swerling: I think he was trying to find out, confirm that they were together. … He wanted to talk to her.

According to Swerling, Haynie and McClendon had betrayed McClendon’s promise to Ackerman to stand down until the Ackerman’s marriage was officially over.

Jack Swerling: She couldn’t wait another month?… And she’s out with this guy. Uh, and she’s cheating on her husband. … They are still legally married. South Carolina law calls that adultery.

And Swerling says the night McClendon died, he’d let Ackerman’s repeated calls and text messages to Haynie get under his skin.

Jack Swerling: Davis got upset about it and that’s what led to them having this meeting. Bud just thought they were gonna meet and talk.

He says Ackerman had suggested an innocent and safe place for it to happen.

Jack Swerling: They were supposed to meet at Bud’s parents’ house, which is about half-a-mile from that location.

Swerling says Ackerman’s children were sleeping there that night, so attacking Davis would have been the last thing on his client’s mind.

Jack Swerling: You wouldn’t meet at your parents’ house if you were angry and threatening I’m ready to kill somebody.

He says it was McClendon who selected the deserted intersection as a new location. And remember how McClendon was found without his shirt on that night? Well, Swerling says he believes Davis took it off to prepare for a confrontation.

Jack Swerling: He was ready to fight.

Swerling insists Ackerman meant no harm that night. And Bud is about to tell that story to a jury.

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA V. WILLIAM “BUD” ACKERMAN

Prosecutors are determined to prove it was no accident that Bud Ackerman hit Davis McClendon the night McClendon died. So, in September 2024, Assistant Attorneys General John Conrad and John Meadors start the case off with a bang.

John Meadors (in court): He intentionally drove his car into the body of Davis McClendon. BAM! … And that’s what this case is about.

They’ll argue Ackerman couldn’t stand the fact that his estranged wife was seeing someone and Bud was searching for Meredith Haynie and Davis McClendon all over town.

John Meadors: Bud Ackerman, was not going to let Davis McClendon be with Meredith.

John Meadors (in court referencing doorbell cam video): That’s your house right there?

Roderick Maceda: Yes, sir.

Meadors and Conrad lead with their strongest evidence. There are actually time-stamped videos from the neighbors’ doorbell cameras at the moment of the crash that killed McClendon. They show what prosecutors say is Ackerman’s Ford F-250 driving through the frame. Seconds later on the video, what sounds like a crash. And seconds after that, a series of muffled sounds.

John Meadors (in court): What did you hear?

Roderick Maceda: I heard somebody yelling.

John Meadors: OK.

Prosecutors argue it’s Ackerman’s voice yelling at McClendon after running him down.

Meredith Haynie: What it sounded like to me was “what do you wanna talk about now mother*****?”    

John Meadors: Bud is … yelling … unheavenly expletives, he uh said to Davis as he was lying on the ground … I think he was glad he was dead.

But Ackerman’s defense attorney, Jack Swerling argues the audio is too garbled to prove anything.

Jack Swerling (in court): I’ve listened to it several times now and … I don’t believe you could conclude a hundred percent … that is exactly what he said.

The prosecutor then calls Megan McGovern, the babysitter for the Ackerman’s, and friend, to describe the moment she’d seen McClendon’s body through traumatized teenaged eyes.

Megan McGovern (in court): He had blood coming out of his ears and his nose and I couldn’t — I’m not exactly sure if it was coming out of his mouth or not cause I mean there was just blood everywhere from his nose and everything.

But their star witness is the woman at the center of both men’s affection: Meredith Haynie, who testifies with the date night security videos as a guide.

John Meadors (in court, showing bar security video): Is that you?

Meredith Haynie: Yes, sir.

She tells the jury Bud Ackerman called her when she and McClendon were at Break on the Lake —

John Meadors (in court): Did you think he was trying to find you?

Meredith Haynie: I did worry. Yes.

— and kept calling after they got to the Key West Club.

John Meadors (in court, showing security video): Is that a call from the defendant Bud Ackerman?

Meredith Haynie: Yes, sir …

John Meadors: Did you reject that call?

Meredith Haynie: Yes …

John Meadors: 18 seconds later … you get another call?

Meredith Haynie: Yes sir.

John Meadors: What would you think about all these calls coming in …

Meredith Haynie: I was getting very frustrated and angry and just — it was getting obsessive; it was getting scary. 

John Meadors (in court, referencing security video pictured above): And is that Davis McClendon leaving the bar?

Meredith Haynie: Yes …

And she says by the time McClendon left her at the Key West Club after midnight, she was worried Ackerman might be volatile. So when McClendon later called to tell her he was going to meet with Ackerman, she says she wanted to go check on the situation in person. And makes clear to the jury that when she saw the scene, she had little doubt who’d killed her boyfriend.

Meredith Haynie (in court): I dove back into Meg’s car because I thought that the only way that Bud would’ve ever killed somebody would’ve been to shoot –

Jack Swerling: Objection!

John Meadors: Objection …    

The judge sustains the defense’s objection. But Haynie continues.

Meredith Haynie (in court): I was scared that he was still out there.

Judge Donald Hocker: OK, Mr. Swerling, any cross-examination?

Jack Swerling: I have no questions.

Judge Donald Hocker: Step down ma’am.

John Conrad: Your honor, uh, the state calls Special Agent Bryan Hudak.

Digital forensics expert Brian Hudak tells the jury, about data in the infotainment system of Ackerman’s pickup, including some that show Bud was driving in exactly the right place –

Brian Hudak (in court): … in Greenwood at the intersection of Avid and Sawgrass.

 — at exactly the right time to be implicated in the deadly collision.

John Conrad (in court): Between —

Brian Hudak: 1:11:31 and 1:11:32.

He suggests they can even tell the moment of impact.

John Conrad (in court): There’s something that causes this truck to de-accelerate (sic) very quickly, correct?

Brian Hudak: Correct.

And Hudak says the evidence shows Ackerman was going 25 miles per hour.

John Conrad: And the amount of detail that that truck had on what Bud did that night is, is simply breathtaking.

Cpl. Kristopher Bratcher: The Ford vehicle is … on the completely on the wrong side of the road when it strikes the BMW.

Collision reconstruction expert Corporal Kristopher Bratcher testifies the dents show Ackerman’s speeding pickup sideswiped McClendon’s BMW sedan, as shown in CBS News animation based on the prosecution’s theory. They say Ackerman was aiming at McClendon, who was standing near the driver’s door when he was hit, and that the truck kept going with McClendon on the grille until he fell off where authorities found him. But Swerling argues much of the same evidence shows hitting McClendon was an accident.

Jack Swerling (in court): We maintain that Mr. Ackerman did not act intentionally in this case.

He says Ackerman had no idea McClendon was standing outside his car, and calls auto forensics expert Jonathan Nelson to testify that given Ackerman’s speed — in the dark, over a slope in the road and into the parked BMW’s headlight beams — he wouldn’t have seen McClendon standing in the road until at most two-and-a-half seconds before the collision.

Jack Swerling (in court): Would a person have sufficient opportunity to avoid impact?

Jonathan Nelson: I think that most people would have little to no opportunity to begin to try to avoid.

And Swerling says McClendon wasn’t standing right next to his car when he was hit, but further out towards the center of the road. And that Ackerman swerved to his left into the BMW to get around him, as shown in CBS News animation based on the defense’s theory.

Jack Swerling: He’s trying to avoid hitting him.

Meredith Haynie: Wouldn’t you swerve the other way?

Jack Swerling: Why didn’t he go right? … I can’t answer that.

Swerling knows there may be only one person who can.

Jack Swerling (in court): I’d … call, uh, Bud Ackerman.

Judge Donald Hocker: Alright. Come around to the stand please, sir.

Ackerman’s attorney begins by trying to show the jury his client was Haynie’s long-suffering but devoted husband.

Jack Swerling (in court): Did you love her?

Bud Ackerman: I did very much.

He admits he was angry at Haynie, but says he only wanted to talk to her and agreed to meet McClendon to talk to him, too.

Jack Swerling (in court): Did you have any intention to hurt him?

Bud Ackerman: I did not.

Ackerman says he hadn’t realized how fast he was going and that he was only trying to pull up next to McClendon to talk, and didn’t see McClendon standing in the road until the last moment.

Jack Swerling (in court): What action did you take, if any, to avoid hitting the person?

Bud Ackerman: I jerked my truck as hard as I could to the left, to try to hit his car to stop the motion of my truck from going forward.

But on cross-examination, he admits something that undercuts his claims of innocence that night; he had never called 911.

Bud Ackerman (in court): I panicked.

John Meadors: You panicked?

Bud Ackerman: Mm-hmm.

Instead, he left the scene and drove to his parents’ house and told them what had happened. But they never called authorities either.

Jack Swerling: I’ve seen so many people react in abnormal ways in all the cases I’ve handled that I’ve come to expect those kind of things.

In closings, prosecutor Meadors argues Ackerman is a murderer, with the truck as his weapon.

John Meadors (in court): This might as well be a drive-by shooting with a gun.

And he says the Ford pickup’s infotainment system proves it.

John Meadors: (in court, holding up the truck’s infotainment system): This is Bud’s brain … This is malice. … this is intent.

Jack Swerling: The state has not proven that Mr. Ackerman acted with malice or with the intent.

It’s the highest possible bar. And the defense insists the state has not proven its case.

Jack Swerling (in court): Mr. Ackerman is entitled … to a verdict of not guilty.

John Meadors (in court): This is judgment day. It’s verdict day.

Jack Swerling: You never know what a jury is gonna do … you’ve got 12 people making the decision.

JURORS REACH A VERDICT

For the Ackerman jury, six days of testimony and evidence boil down to a deliberation less than a half hour long.

Anne-Marie Green: Did you have a feeling about what that verdict might be?

Jack Swerling: Yes. Yeah. Quick verdict like that is not good. Not good.

JURY FOREPERSON: The state of South Carolina Vs. William Grey “Bud” Ackerman … We, the jury unanimously find the defendant … guilty.

Bud Ackerman is guilty of the murder of Davis McClendon.

John Meadors: It was the right verdict.

Meredith Haynie: I mean I thought it would be fast … not that fast!

Not just fast, but too fast to be thought through, says Ackerman’s attorney Jack Swerling.

Jack Swerling: I don’t think the jury considered everything that was presented to ’em.

Chip Funderbunk: They didn’t need a lot of time to stew over the evidence, the evidence was clear and obvious.

Damning evidence of what Bud Ackerman did, say Davis McClendon’s friends, and equally damning evidence, they say, of what Ackerman never did.

Zach Calhoun: Our friend laid there … in the road.

They still can’t wrap their heads around why nobody in the Ackerman family ever called 911. 

Johnny Coats: Somebody should have done the right thing.

At sentencing right after the verdict, McClendon’s son demands accountability from the Ackerman’s.

Frederick McClendon (in court): It is time for this spoiled evil individual and this spoiled evil family in Greenwood to finally gain some repercussions for their actions. Thank you.

William “Gray” Ackerman Sr. (in court): A lot’s been said about why we didn’t call 911 …

Bud Ackerman’s father tries to explain his own lack of action by saying he was too disoriented to know what to do at that hour of the night, when his son woke him with the news.

The judge’s sentence is devastating to the defendant.

Judge Donald Hocker: Mr. Ackerman, if you please stand, sir. Sentence of the court is Mr. Ackerman, you be committed to the state department corrections, a period of 45 years.

It looks like the end of the road for Bud Ackerman.

Meredith Haynie: I know that where he is, is where he is supposed to be.

But it may allow for a new beginning for Meredith Haynie.

Meredith Haynie: I was worried that … if he only got five or 10 years, that I’d never get to start a new life because I’d be scared for when he got out.

With their father unlikely to get out of prison for decades, she’s determined to spare her children from the impact of that horrible night. As a single mom, she leans on friends and family.

Anne-Marie Green: How are the kids doing?

Meredith Haynie: … we’ll make it through.

Looking back, she believes Bud Ackerman really wanted to target her that night, and that she’s only alive because he found Davis McClendon first.

Meredith Haynie: Davis saved my life.

Anne-Marie Green: You really feel that way?

Meredith Haynie: Absolutely.

If true, Haynie owes her life, however challenging, to the new man she had once hoped to share it with.

Anne-Marie Green: How would you like Davis to be remembered?

Meredith Haynie: As … a hero … for the way he treated people, for his empathy, for his heart … he was just a good person.

Meredith and her children no longer live in Greenwood, South Carolina.

Bud Ackerman is not eligible for parole and is expected to be released in 2068. Ackerman is appealing his conviction. 

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Produced by Josh Yager. Charlotte A. Fuller and Marc B. Goldbaum are the development producers. Shaheen Tokhi is the field producer. Atticus Brady, Michelle Harris and George Baluzy are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.