Prosecutors to seek death in triple slaying; family mourns in victims' native Hampton County

ESTILL - Shantell DeVore Miller used to have strong objections to capital punishment. She even wrote a paper explaining her position while in community college a few years ago.

But looking over the graves of three family members on Thursday — a year to the day after they were killed at an apartment complex near Dorchester Road— she wasn't so sure. All the more so now that the 1st Circuit Solicitor's Office said last week that it intends to seek the death penalty against a man accused of shooting them.

"Now that it's hit so close and so personally, I've had to let up on my thought process," Miller said. "If he's truly guilty, I would not be against it."

Diane Grant, 44, her son, Jatavious DeVore, 20, and her daughter, DeAnna DeVore, 14, were shot at the Archdale Forest Apartments on July 10, 2007.

Though the crime occurred in unincorporated Dorchester County near North Charleston, the news hit especially hard in rural areas 90 minutes away. Diane had grown up in the small Hampton County communities of Scotia and Gifford. She worked at a plastic company in Hampton before moving to the Charleston area.

Diane had moved away about five years ago, according to Miller, who is the first cousin of DeAnna and Jatavious' father. The mother of three got a job at the Robert Bosch Plant on Dorchester Road.

DeAnna and Jatavious attended public schools in Estill, where a memorial service after the deaths drew hundreds.

Back in Hampton County, Diane had been known to work two or three jobs at once. She even commuted across two counties to work cleaning jobs in the posh resort community of Hilton Head Island. Extended family helped look after her children.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.