A SHOCK ARREST HAS BEEN MADE NINE YEARS AFTER FOUR FAMILY MEMBERS WERE SLAIN
On 2November 2015, just few days after Halloween, a real-life nightmare unfolded in the small town of Pendleton, South Carolina. Detectives arriving at abungalow there were horrified to discover the deceased remains of four members of the same family scattered throughout the rooms of the small dwelling.
The lifeless bodies of husband and wife Michael, 58, and Cathy Scott, 60, along with their mothers, Barbara Scott, 80, and Violet Taylor, 82, had lain undiscovered for what coroners believed was two days. When forensic teams entered the home, they found it undisturbed. The door was unlocked with no signs of forced entry, and it appeared as though the victims had welcomed their killers into the house. Sergeant Scotty Hill from the investigative team told the Unsolved Mysteries podcast, “The family had to have known [the killers], because nobody put up a fight until after the attack occurred or started.” Speaking on the same podcast, Anderson County Sheriff Chad McBride said, “This was not acrime of randomness. It was avery planned, personal crime. All the details in the crime point to it being very personal and it had to be somebody they knew very well.”
Authorities were called after Cathy’s daughter Amy Vilardi –who lived on the same plot of land – grew concerned when she hadn’t seen her mother out walking her Chihuahua Buddy, as she normally would. The dog was also able to roam freely on the property, so it was unusual that he was absent.
In an emotional interview on US TV afew days after the murders, Amy said, “When Iwent to knock on the back door, the door just pushed open, so Iwalked in. It was dark and Ijust flipped the light on and there they were.” She added, “I don’t understand why any of it has happened and Ijust keep thinking it’s adream I’m going to wake up from.”
Amy was not the only family member who had been worried, Michael’s sister Pam Isbell had not heard from her brother since 31 October, which was highly unusual. Michael’s boss at the South Carolina Department of Transportation had received amessage from him on Sunday 1 November to tell him he would be back at work on Monday after he’d enjoyed afew days off the previous week. But Michael didn’t return, and later that day, Pam got the call that would change her life irrevocably when the authorities informed her that her family members had been massacred. “They were gone. Dead. All of them,” Pam said. “My brother, my mother, my sister-in-law, her mother. Just gone.”
It would take eight years for a breakthrough, and in that time, Amy would make many tearful public TV appearances calling for justice for the family, saying, “Whoever did this, Ido
