‘Just crazy’: Man working to clear name after wrongfully identified for crimes he didn’t commit

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS/Gray News) - A South Carolina man says he still working to clear his name after he was wrongfully identified as an arsonist for crimes he had nothing to do with more than a month ago.

Columbia police arrested a man named Jarod Stacy on March 25. He was accused of setting fire to several Walmart locations in the area.

But Stacy gave police the name Hunter A. Laycock and he was booked into the county detention center under that name, the wrong name.

Police blasted out Laycock’s name in a release, but quickly corrected it.

The real Laycock said things have gotten better since it all began, but he still fears it is not over.

“The first week was just crazy getting in touch with press outlets, having to get in touch with Columbia police, getting in touch with Columbia fire,” he said.

Laycock said it was a hectic few hours on March 26, after he had realized his name was tied to a pair of arsons he did not commit.

He said it was a “mad dash” trying to get the situation sorted out, and very unsettling.

“It was scary,” Laycock said. “You don’t know what to do, and there’s not really a clear path forward. Like I can’t just call the jail and go, ‘No, that wasn’t Hunter Laycock who did that.’ You need verification.”

More than a month removed from the ordeal, Laycock still is not sure how the mix-up got this far, with Stacy booked under his name.

“Are you just taking criminals at their word?” he said. “That seems a little silly.”

Laycock lost his identification a few months ago and believes that at some point Stacy, who has prior arrests in South Carolina and other states, found it.

However, Columbia police said that Stacy did not have identification on him at the time of his arrest.

A Richland County spokesperson said Stacy was fingerprinted at the jail per standard protocol, but it is not clear if that tied Stacy to his prior arrests.

“There is some conflicting information,” Laycock said.

Since his name was tied to the Stacy case, Laycock said he has also received a mysterious medical bill.

“Is there something more coming?” he said. “It seems like there could be another shoe about to drop.”

Laycock paid the bill so it would not affect his credit score.

“I think I’ve done what I can do for now,” he said.

WIS reports it requested Stacy’s booking documents and phone calls at the jail in the hopes that they could provide some clarity, but Richland County said those records would cost upwards of $500.

An attorney would need to spend more than 11 hours redacting them, the county said.

“It does seem like they are trying to make it intentionally obtuse,” Laycock said.

Richland County attorney Patrick Wright said on Thursday that this is because there are 11 hours of recordings that lawyers need to review for possible private information.

However, the Freedom of Information Act, the law that protects the public’s right to know about their government, states that “Fees may not be charged for examination and review to determine if the documents are subject to disclosure.”

Jay Bender, an experienced media law attorney who represents the S.C. Press Association, said he believes the fee is inflated.

“I think that is consistent with a practice by many public bodies to dissuade the public from asking for records that reveal what the government is doing,” he said.

Bender believes this situation is not unique.

“I think there’s a culture in Richland County to keep information from the public, and unfortunately it starts at the top,” he said.

Wright assured WIS that the county is not withholding any information. It is protecting people’s private information through this legal redaction fee, he said.

However, Bender said the law provides great protections for public agencies in releasing information to the public.

“When the county or any public body releases public information, it has no liability for doing so,” he said. “There is no right of privacy that attaches to you if you are in a public record. So, nobody can claim an invasion of privacy if the county were to release all of this information.”

Wright said Richland County may ultimately win a possible invasion of privacy lawsuit, but it wants to avoid unnecessary litigation if possible.

The county is charging $47 an hour to redact these records.

Though the city of Columbia’s fee schedule charges about $20 an hour for similar tasks, Wright said the only person who can do this at the county level is an attorney.

According to Laycock, he would like to see Columbia police and the detention center put more stringent policies in place when making arrests and booking suspects to ensure something like this does not happen to anyone else.

“We live in a world of artificial intelligence, sensors, scanners, all of that,” he said. “You cannot convince me that there is not some solution that could scan facial feature data. I think something like that needs to be implemented, especially in a jail that houses some very dangerous people.”

A Columbia police spokesperson said no policy changes are currently being considered.

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