State of South Carolina
County of Lexington

Coroner's Office

Coroner: Harry O. Harman
Office location: 117 Duffie Drive, Lexington, S. C. 29072

Contact:
telephone:
803-359-8439
telephone after-hours: above number forwards to Lexington County "central dispatch"
fax: 803-785-8492
e-mail: coroner@lex-co.com and the official Lexington County WEB SITE. Look up info on this and all other county coroner offices in S. C. HERE

Personnel:
coroner: Harry O. Harman
senior deputy coroner: Randy A. Martin
senior deputy coroner: Helen Gamble
senior investigator: Lowell "Corky" Spires

forensic death investigator: Laura Grimes-Gould
deputy coroner: Todd Caughman
deputy coroner: Jim Joy
deputy coroner: Robert Johnson
deputy coroner: Ashley R. Hicks
deputy coroner: James R. "Ronnie" Corley

General:

The coroner of Lexington County is an elected county official who serves four-year terms, coroner's election coinciding with the election of state governor. Though many have law enforcement backgrounds and are required to take continuing education annually, there are no strict educational qualifications. The county coroner is the only county official having the authority to arrest the county sheriff. In the event, for whatever reason, the county sheriff cannot fulfill his duties, the county coroner takes over those duties as acting sheriff until either a special election is held or the governor names a new sheriff. Only our state governor can remove any county coroner from office. Should the office be suddenly vacated, the governor may appoint an acting coroner until a special election can be held to elect a new coroner.

The coroner is absolutely empowered to investigate deaths through whatever means are necessary, subpoenoing medical records, making inquests before a coroner's jury, gaining access to law enforcement investigatory information, and the ordering of postmortem examinations of the dead body, autopsies to be performed in Lexington County by independent cooperating pathologists. The pathologists at Lexington Medical Center are the primary co-operating pathology group, and the group in Newberry are secondary.

Determination of "cause of death" and "manner of death" often has hugely important legal & monetary implications to a family & to society. See Dr. Shaw's discussion HERE.

A review of 2006 data showed that, of the 189 coroner-ordered autopsies, only 15% of cases took over 60 days to finalize (2.2% of coroner's call volume). Eleven took over 90 days. We pathologists are well aware that financial matters such as life insurance may not be settled until a final autopsy report allows issuance of a death certificate. Some cases are very complicated. Suppose a preliminary autopsy diagnosis resulted in a large life insurance payment that allowed a family to buy something very expensive. Then, suppose that subsequent investigative, toxicology and autopsy findings changed the final autopsy diagnosis & manner of death into one which the life insurance would NOT have paid on. The result would be demands for return of the money to the insurance company and possibly a nasty law suit against the family which caused large legal expenses.

The coroner not infrequently requests that we do autopsies in cases of deaths which are not in question as to being a "natural" manner of death. They tend to do this when there is an unexpected death in a patient who is either not under the care of a physician or a death in circumstances which do not seem straight-forward enough that the physician feels unable to assign the cause of death.

Should a citizen come upon information (even many years after a death) which seems important because it might have changed the cause and/or manner of had it been originally known, and they want to notify authorities, here is an opinion. Notify an elected official, be it the county coroner or a state senator or representative of that jurisdiction.


Lexington County Coroners, from present back to 1805:

Harry O. Harman (election of 1976-coroner 1977 to present)
Baron B. Schumpert (election of 1968-1976)
Carroll W. Day (election of 1964-1968)
Raymond S. Caughman (appt. 13 May 1959 to fill father's term-1964)
Willie Morgan "Morgan" Caughman (election of 1932-died 1959)
Warren Columbus Weed (appointed Nov. 1930-1932)
J. Drafts Boozer (election of 1928-resigned) 
Warren Columbus Weed (election of 1912-1928)
Belton D. Clark (appt. 7 August 1907-1912)
A. O. Wilson (election of 1900-died 1906)
J. M. Crapps (election of 1896-1900)
James H. Fields (election of 1892-1896)
P. H. Corley (election of 1888-1892)
James E. Rawl (election of 1884-1888)
W. A. Corley (1882-1884)
Samuel D. Bailey (election of 1880-1882)

J. S. Guignard (1878-1880)

James E. Rawl (election of 1876-1878)
Charles J. Hendrix (1874-1878)
C. P. Quattlebaum (1871-1874)

E. J. Caughman (1867-1871)
West Caughman (1855-1867)
West Caughman & Jacob Harman (1851-1852)
John J. Able (election of 1848-1851)
Jacob Harman (1843-?)
George J. Hook  & Ephraim Corley (election of 1840-1843)
Frederick Class (appt. 1814-?)
J. J. Haig (appt. 1805-?)

Forensic link
(posted April 2002; latest update 20 September 2010)