On the trail of several suspects in the year-old slaying of Sam's Club Manager David Holt, Richmond County sheriff's investigators have enlisted the help of FBI profilers to make sure they're on the right track. As the investigative file of the grisly slaying grows, criminal or behavioral profiling has become the latest in investigative techniques used to create the persona of someone likely to commit such a crime. Sheriff's Chief Deputy Ronald Strength would confirm only that investigators are using profiling in the case, but he declined to discuss details. He had left his job a few hours earlier at Sam's Club on Bobby Jones Expressway, but apparently came back to the store. The store later was robbed and the safe emptied.
Police say robbery was the motive for the killing.
Agents with the FBI and South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division conducted profiling in the O'Mailia case in the spring. Looking at instruments used in the crime and whether torture was involved contributes to whether a crime is considered personal. Investigators have said several people are suspected in the Sam's Club robbery and killing, and whoever the killers are, they had intimate knowledge of the store. More than a year has passed since the slaying, but Chief Deputy Strength said that has not hindered the investigation. Meghan Gourley covers crime for The Augusta Chronicle.