The 2003 Abbeville right-of-way standoff was a 14-hour shootout that took place on December 8, 2003, in Abbeville, South Carolina, between alleged extremists and self-proclaimed "sovereign citizens" Arthur, Rita, and their son Steven Bixby; and members of the Abbeville city police department, the Abbeville County sheriff's office, the South Carolina Highway Patrol, the South Carolina Department of Transportation , and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Overview
The standoff, which resulted from a dispute between the Bixbys and the state of South Carolina over surveying during the planning of a highway widening project, resulted in the deaths of two lawmen, Abbeville County Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Daniel "Danny Boy" Wilson, 37, and State Constable Donald "Donnie" Ouzts, 61. All three Bixbys were taken into police custody after surrendering late in the evening of December 8. On February 19, 2007, a Chesterfield County jury found Steven Vernon Bixby (born August 17, 1967) guilty on 17 counts, including both murders as well as several lesser charges of kidnapping and conspiracy. On February 21, 2007, this same jury recommended that Steven Bixby receive two death sentences for the murders and 125 years in prison for the lesser charges. Bixby was scheduled to be executed on April 22, 2007; however, the appeals process has not been exhausted. On August 16, 2010, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Steven Bixby and the death sentence. On April 25, 2011, the United States Supreme Court denied Bixby's petition for a writ of certiorari, effectively ending his appeals process. Steven Bixby is currently on South Carolina's death row at the Broad River Secure Facility in Richland County. On October 26, 2007, an Abbeville County, South Carolina jury found Rita Leona Bixby (née Greenwood; August 4, 1932 – September 12, 2011) guilty of two counts of accessory before the fact of murder and one count of conspiracy. She was given two life sentences on the accessory charges and five additional years for conspiracy, the maximum sentence for that crime. Arthur Walls Bixby (July 4, 1929 – September 5, 2011) was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and subsequently committed to a mental facility.
Events leading to the standoff
The Bixby family lived in Warren, New Hampshire. There, Arthur Bixby was jailed for failure to pay $850, three years after a judgement in a lawsuit. The family's behavior prompted the judge in the case to arrange full-time security. Rita Bixby reportedly had a long history of filing seemingly frivolous lawsuits in New Hampshire courts; one such lawsuit attempted to gain title to land belonging to the Bixbys' neighbors. The court dismissed this suit, but an undeterred Rita Bixby attempted (unsuccessfully) to hold a sheriff's sale of the property in question. The Bixbys also frequently attempted to bypass traditional legal processes by filing claims and suits in unofficial "common law courts", claiming that they were "sovereign citizens" and hence had the right to pursue legal action in whatever manner desired.
In New Hampshire, Steven Bixby was convicted of driving while drunk and without a licence in 1992. In 1994, an arrest warrant was issued when he missed parole check-ins and had failed to pay the fines. He arrived in Abbeville in the 1990s and his parents arrived in 2000. They moved into a small home situated at 4 Union Church Road, near the junction of South Carolina Highway 72, Union Church Road, and Horton Drive, in West Abbeville. The parcel of land surrounding the Bixby residence was subject to a 1960 easement granted by a previous owner, Haskell Johnson, to the state of South Carolina, allowing for the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) to expand its right-of-way on the portion of the property adjoining Highway 72, should it desire to widen this highway in the future. It was debated, however, whether Johnson's granting of this easement to the state was properly recorded by Abbeville County register of deeds. When the 1960 easement was granted, it was permissible under state law to record highway right-of-way instruments in the records vault at the SCDOT headquarters in Columbia. For many years, the SCDOT has also recorded at local county courthouses. In this situation, the 1960 easement was only on file in the SCDOT records vault and not at the Abbeville County courthouse.