Repeat traffic offender charged in collision that killed deputy

GOOSE CREEK — A driver with so many infractions on his record that the state considers him a habitual offender is charged in a head-on collision Sunday that fatally injured an off-duty Berkeley County sheriff's deputy.

Michael Edward Murray, 33, of Goose Creek, shouldn't have been driving because his license was suspended last year until 2011 for being a habitual offender, according to his 10-year driver's record on file with the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles.

Goose Creek police said Murray was driving a van that crossed the center line of North Rhett Extension around 10:12 a.m. Sunday and hit a southbound Mustang driven by sheriff's Deputy Dawn Tillman.

A group of 40 or 50 deputies and dispatchers kept vigil at Trident Medical Center after the wreck. Tillman was taken off life support late Tuesday. She was 37.

Two witnesses told police that the van first grazed an oncoming Pontiac before hitting Tillman's car in the area of Liberty Hall Road.

Witnesses said they saw the van's driver leave in a truck, police reported.

Police later arrested Murray on a charge of giving false information to police, sixth-offense driving under suspension, being a habitual offender and hit and run with personal injury, spokeswoman Casey Hoskins said. Murray's total bail was set at $25,000 in a hearing Tuesday.

A habitual offender is a driver who has accumulated multiple convictions for certain traffic offenses during a three-year period.

Murray's driving history shows violations of driving on a suspended license, failing to pay traffic tickets and operating or allowing operation by an uninsured motorist. His license also was suspended in 2005 for a controlled-substance conviction.

The crash was a blow to the local law enforcement community, which has lost three officers and a K-9 this year in car crashes or shootings.

Sheriff's Lt. Cliff McElvogue spoke fondly of Tillman on Tuesday. Tillman was the only full-time female deputy among the 14 that he supervises on the day shift.

Tillman was a dispatcher for the county for about a year before she was hired at the Sheriff's Office in August 2005.

She graduated from the police academy in December 2005 and seemed "bound and determined to prove herself. She wanted to prove to me she could cut it," McElvogue said.

The show of deputies at the hospital was proof that Tillman earned the respect of her peers, he said. They appreciated that Tillman had the ability to calm people down but still hold her own if a situation escalated or a person became aggressive, McElvogue said.

Practical jokes — moving her patrol car or teasingly calling her "the pirate" when eye surgery required her to wear a black eye patch — didn't rattle Tillman, he said. She laughed it off or pulled her own pranks, McElvogue said.

McElvogue praised Tillman's dependability and devotion to the job. She refused to sit out of work, even when she wore the eye patch, McElvogue said. She asked a reserve female deputy to drive the patrol car and she rode shotgun.

Reach Nita Birmingham at 745-5858 or nbirmingham@postandcourier.com.