LAURENS COUNTY, S.C. — A 46-year-old man has been charged with murder after investigators found the body of a missing 87-year-old Newberry County man buried on a property in the Waterloo area of Laurens County.
Richard Lewis Cribb faces counts of murder, armed robbery, grand larceny and first-degree burglary in the death of 87-year-old Edwin Geer, who lived in Chappells, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said at a news conference Friday. The charges are accusations, and Cribb has not been convicted.
A neighbor called the sheriff’s office on Oct. 17 after noticing his mail piling up and no sign of activity at the house. His pickup truck was also gone.
According to the sheriff’s office, investigators found that starting the same day Geer vanished, Cribb drove the older man’s van and pickup and charged purchases to his credit cards, and pawned some of his belongings in Greenwood County. Cribb then went to Horry County, where authorities say he kept using the cards and pawning property. He was arrested there on Oct. 23 with help from Horry County deputies, the State Law Enforcement Division and federal agents.
Detectives later learned Cribb had rented a mini-excavator and hauled it to a property on Broadway Lane near Waterloo. Laurens County deputies checked the site and saw signs of recent digging and land clearing, and Geer’s truck turned up several miles away on Whitten Road. The Laurens County Commission of Public Works brought in underground detection equipment, and the county parks department helped dig.
Foster said the crimes show how older adults who live alone can be targeted, and he praised the teamwork of sheriff’s offices and other agencies from four counties that worked the case. The case is being handled in Newberry County because the crimes began in Chappells. Separately, Horry County authorities have accused Cribb of financial transaction fraud.
The sheriff described Geer as a quiet woodworker who built birdhouses and small wooden lighthouses, gave them to neighbors and sold them at a crossroads store in Chappells.
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