Just about everyone knows the Nicholsons in this struggling town of 2,700, where the textile industry’s regional decline has helped strand median household income at $26,500 a year, half the U.S. average, and burglary rates run well over national norms. Firearms are a cultural staple – hunting clubs and cabins dot the county – and people say Nicholson’s penchant for guns was a family affair.
“Everybody knew he’d buy guns; his father bought ‘em, his grandfather bought ‘em,” says Al Padgett, 68, who keeps a booth at a local flea market and says he’s known the family all his life. “He collected ‘em, hoarded ‘em, but I never knew him to sell a gun. Not one. He did everyone a favor keeping ‘em off the street.”
Brooks sees things differently. Nicholson had piles of allegedly stolen goods, including a zoo’s worth of taxidermy trophies, Brooks says, but his preference was guns and he provided a ready market for burglars who grabbed them from cabins and hunting camps. The sheriff still hasn’t determined precisely how many guns in Nicholson’s cache were stolen, noting that hundreds have had their serial numbers removed so they can’t be traced.
Brooks suspects Nicholson may have been selling some of the guns. He had relatively few handguns – maybe a half-dozen large buckets full – and “that makes us believe he had a market for those and was moving them north,” Brooks says, noting that the matter remains under investigation.
On Oct. 21, a sheriff’s deputy just over the state line in Union County, North Carolina, pulled Nicholson over for running a stop sign. Nicholson’s pick-up had bogus license plates – and the deputy noticed rifle barrels poking up from behind the seat when he approached the vehicle.
A search turned up 20 rifles, nine handguns and nearly 200 hydrocodone pills, arrest records show, and several of the guns were stolen. Nicholson was arrested for possessing stolen weapons, trafficking in opiates and vehicular violations.
Nicholson was still jailed 48 hours later when a deputy in Pageland stopped by his house with a subpoena in a family court matter. The deputy spotted equipment in the yard that had been reported stolen, and investigators returned with a search warrant. They’d spend the next six days removing guns, hundreds of cases of ammo, and other goods.
“He was going up to Union County to do something with those guns; we don’t know what,” Brooks says. “We’ve got information that he was moving some of these goods and … we’re looking at his activities to see if he was part of something more organized.”
Tracking Nicholson’s guns is a challenge because many states, including South Carolina, don’t regulate private gun purchases, which are unrestricted and require no background check. So person-to-person sales, including gun show transactions that don’t involve licensed dealers, are largely untraceable.
So far, investigators have identified owners of just a fraction of Nicholson’s guns. Even those that still have serial numbers can be traced only to the last time they passed through a licensed dealer. And since there’s no requirement that gun owners record those numbers, many who believe their guns were stolen and sold to Nicholson are unable to prove the weapons belong to them.
Ultimately, the courts will decide what happens to Nicholson’s guns. Brooks suspects many will be destroyed, particularly those with no serial numbers, because their rightful owners can’t be identified.
“It doesn’t make sense,” says Otis Burch, 85, another local who knows the Nicholsons. “He’s a good man – he wasn’t selling those guns.
“I asked him just about a month ago if he’d sell me a deer rifle,” Burch adds, “and he said he didn’t have any.”
(Reporting by Peter Eisler; Editing by Jason Szep and Martin Howell)
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“Everybody knew he’d buy guns; his father bought ‘em, his grandfather bought ‘em,” says Al Padgett, 68, who keeps a booth at a local flea market and says he’s known the family all his life. “He collected ‘em, hoarded ‘em, but I never knew him to sell a gun. Not one. He did everyone a favor keeping ‘em off the street.”
Brooks sees things differently. Nicholson had piles of allegedly stolen goods, including a zoo’s worth of taxidermy trophies, Brooks says, but his preference was guns and he provided a ready market for burglars who grabbed them from cabins and hunting camps. The sheriff still hasn’t determined precisely how many guns in Nicholson’s cache were stolen, noting that hundreds have had their serial numbers removed so they can’t be traced.
Brooks suspects Nicholson may have been selling some of the guns. He had relatively few handguns – maybe a half-dozen large buckets full – and “that makes us believe he had a market for those and was moving them north,” Brooks says, noting that the matter remains under investigation.
On Oct. 21, a sheriff’s deputy just over the state line in Union County, North Carolina, pulled Nicholson over for running a stop sign. Nicholson’s pick-up had bogus license plates – and the deputy noticed rifle barrels poking up from behind the seat when he approached the vehicle.
A search turned up 20 rifles, nine handguns and nearly 200 hydrocodone pills, arrest records show, and several of the guns were stolen. Nicholson was arrested for possessing stolen weapons, trafficking in opiates and vehicular violations.
Nicholson was still jailed 48 hours later when a deputy in Pageland stopped by his house with a subpoena in a family court matter. The deputy spotted equipment in the yard that had been reported stolen, and investigators returned with a search warrant. They’d spend the next six days removing guns, hundreds of cases of ammo, and other goods.
“He was going up to Union County to do something with those guns; we don’t know what,” Brooks says. “We’ve got information that he was moving some of these goods and … we’re looking at his activities to see if he was part of something more organized.”
Tracking Nicholson’s guns is a challenge because many states, including South Carolina, don’t regulate private gun purchases, which are unrestricted and require no background check. So person-to-person sales, including gun show transactions that don’t involve licensed dealers, are largely untraceable.
So far, investigators have identified owners of just a fraction of Nicholson’s guns. Even those that still have serial numbers can be traced only to the last time they passed through a licensed dealer. And since there’s no requirement that gun owners record those numbers, many who believe their guns were stolen and sold to Nicholson are unable to prove the weapons belong to them.
Ultimately, the courts will decide what happens to Nicholson’s guns. Brooks suspects many will be destroyed, particularly those with no serial numbers, because their rightful owners can’t be identified.
“It doesn’t make sense,” says Otis Burch, 85, another local who knows the Nicholsons. “He’s a good man – he wasn’t selling those guns.
“I asked him just about a month ago if he’d sell me a deer rifle,” Burch adds, “and he said he didn’t have any.”
(Reporting by Peter Eisler; Editing by Jason Szep and Martin Howell)