White Couple Charged In Cross Burning On Black Neighbors’ Lawn In SC

CONWAY, SC – Late last year, a white couple in Conway, South Carolina, was arrested after they allegedly erected and set fire to a cross outside the home of their Black neighbors, WMBF reports. According to the Horry County Police Department, Worden Butler and Alexis Harnett were both charged with second-degree harassment.

Even though this is their most blatant and disturbing act yet, Butler and Harnett allegedly have had a history of harassing their Black neighbors, Shawn and Monica Williams, with racist remarks, threats, disturbing claims, and now this.

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The Black couple said they walked outside to a burning cross facing their home over Thanksgiving weekend.

“There was a cross burning about eight feet from our fence,” Monica said. “We were speechless because we’ve never experienced something like that.”

The couple moved to Conway, settling into the perfect retirement home, but said their neighbors have made the last two years a living nightmare.

“He’s blatant with the ‘N-word,’” Monica said. “He chased off our surveyors. He’s chased off people from the water and sewer department.”

As if those acts weren’t bad enough, Harnett allegedly told the couple that he “killed a Black woman in the past,” according to USA Today.

Her partner in crime, Butler, also allegedly made some disturbing posts on social media, once posting the Black couple’s address on Facebook and writing that he planned on “summoning the devil’s army, and I don’t care if they and I both go down in the same boat. I’m about to make them pay.”

While the NAACP and local police are investigating these acts, South Carolina is one of the two states in the country that doesn’t have laws that criminalize hate crimes.