All About Stephen Corey Bryant, Who Left a Message in Blood During His 2004 Killing Spree

Kimberly Dees grew worried as her calls to her father kept going to voicemail. But when a stranger picked up on the sixth ring, it became the stuff of nightmares.

Dees asked that her dad, 62-year-old Willard “TJ” Tietjen, be put on the phone, but the stranger told her that was impossible.

“I killed him three hours ago,” he said, then laughed and hung up.

This was but one moment of terror in a shocking October 2004 spree of murderous violence committed by Stephen Corey Bryant over a five-square-mile rural area in Sumter County, S.C., just east of Columbia. In eight days, Bryant killed three people, seriously wounded another and burglarized multiple homes before his apprehension by local authorities.

According to investigators, Bryant, 23 years old at the time of his murder spree, had a criminal record and was on probation after serving 18 months in prison for burglary. Bryant, who came from a troubled home and would later be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for abuse suffered in childhood, was first institutionalized in the juvenile justice system at the age of 11.

At trial, his defense attorney would claim that Bryant relapsed into drug use prior to the spate of seemingly random violence. The crimes were committed with a .40 Smith and Wesson that he got from burglarizing a home immediately prior to the murder spree.

His first victim, Clinton Brown, survived after being shot in the back of the head while fishing in the Wateree River. He drove himself to a local hospital where he was treated for his wounds.

Four days later, Bryant claimed his first life: that of his friend and former colleague, 36-year-old Clifton Gainey. Gainey and Bryant had worked construction together until Bryant was fired for poor performance. After heading out together for a day of leisure, Bryant shot Gainey on the side of a dirt road while Gainey relieved himself. Bryant then drove off with some steaks the men had just bought and returned to Gainey’s trailer, which he ransacked for home electronics and an aquarium.

His second victim—Byrant’s most gruesome murder—was Tietjen. Bryant approached Tietjen’s isolated ranch home, where he told the man that his truck had overheated. After the men talked for hours, Bryant killed Tietjen and then robbed his home. In addition to the taunting phone call with Tietjen’s daughter (as well as one with Tietjen’s wife), Bryant also dipped a potholder into Tietjen’s blood and smeared a message on the wall for investigators, writing, “Victem 4 in 2 weeks. Catch me if u can,” according to NBC News. He also burned Tietjen’s eyeballs with cigarettes.

His final victim was 35-year-old Christopher Burgess. The pair met at a convenience store, after which they were seen putting the man’s motorcycle into the back of Bryant’s truck and riding off together. Similar to Gainey, Bryant shot Burgess twice and left him dead on the side of the road.

According to the South Carolina Daily Gazette, Bryant was arrested the day of Gainey’s murder at his girlfriend’s home after witnesses identified him.

Bryant’s string of violence continued after his apprehension. While in pretrial detention, one year to the day after his final murder, he attacked and seriously injured a corrections officer.

Bryant pleaded guilty to his crimes in 2008, which moved the proceedings out of a jury trial and directly into the penalty phase. Bryant’s lawyer attempted to persuade the judge that he should be spared the death penalty, noting Bryant’s childhood abuse and the deleterious effects of his drug addiction. Bryant also told investigators that he had been threatened by his victims, although police found no evidence to support that. At sentencing, a psychiatrist testified that Bryant was not intellectually disabled, but he’d been found after his arrest to have “antisocial personality disorder with depressed mood”.

On September 11, 2008, the court sentenced Bryant to death for Tietjen’s murder. Bryant also received life sentences for the two other two killings, and 100 years combined for all the other crimes, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette.

In the years following Bryant’s sentence, his attorneys unsuccessfully attempted to appeal his execution several times, losing first in the South Carolina Supreme Court and then subsequently in a U.S. Court of Appeals. On October 17, 2025, Bryant was given an execution date of November 14, 2025, and told he had until October 31, 2025, to pick his method of execution between lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair. Bryant chose a firing squad.

His lawyers subsequently filed a last-minute appeal with the state Supreme Court on the basis of brain damage that Bryant suffered in-utero due to his pregnant mother’s drinking. During his 2008 trial, a forensic psychiatrist found that Bryant had no organic brain damage.

On November 10, South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously denied the appeal, stating that having Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder would not change the outcome of a death sentence. Bryant’s last recourse is clemency from Governor Henry McMaster. No South Carolina governor has granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty, according to the Associated Press. 

Bryant will be the third man executed by firing squad in South Carolina this year.