On the afternoon of Nov. 2 2015, Amy Vilardi left her home on Refuge Road in Pendleton, South Carolina and went to visit her mom and stepfather, Cathy and Mike Scott, who lived next door with their two elderly mothers. The Scotts lived in a double wide mobile home and Amy and her husband Ross lived on the same property in a single-wide. Amy entered the home to find a horrifying scene. 58-year-old Mike Scott, 60-year-old Cathy Scott, 80-year-old Barbara Scott, and 82-year-old Violet Taylor had all been murdered.
Based on the scene of the crime, the four ate a meal together before they were murdered and there were no signs of forced entry into the home. All four victims had been killed with a knife, and gunshots were fired into their bodies after that. Cathy was found in the master bedroom and Mike, Barbara, and Violet were all in the living area. Investigators theorized Mike had been murdered first, as he would have been the biggest threat, and due to a lack of defensive wounds he probably had not seen the attack coming.
The yard was still decorated for Halloween, and a full bowl of candy sat on a table next to the front door, leading investigators to believe the Scott’s had been expecting trick or treaters. Based on a text message Mike sent to his boss earlier that day, it appeared the murders may have occurred in the early afternoon or evening hours of October 31.
Pendleton is a small town about 130 miles northwest of Columbia. Fifty-eight-year-old Mike Scott worked at the South Carolina Department of Transportation in Anderson. He also had a side business and bought gold and other jewelry for cash. Mike was not a fan of banks and preferred to keep cash on hand rather than in a checking or savings account. This was a fact his neighbors, family, and close acquaintances knew. Cathy spent the majority of her time caring for the couple’s two elderly mothers. The two had first met in junior high school, and then Cathy went to another high school and they didn’t see one another for many years. They reconnected after Cathy’s first husband passed away.
A Brewing Family Feud
Lt. Sheila Cole with the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office said they believed the deaths were part of an “isolated incident” and that there was no danger to the public. It didn’t take the department long to realize Cathy’s daughter Amy, who discovered the bodies, had a contentious relationship with her mother and stepfather that had erupted into a full-blown feud just a few months before the murders. Amy had been married a few times and had two small children, which Mike and Cathy had a large hand in raising. With Amy and the kids living right behind the Scotts, they had easy access to their grandchildren, and the great-grandmothers also enjoyed having the little ones around.
But Amy didn’t appreciate her mother and stepfather telling her how to raise her children. She also held a grudge against her mother, as she felt she had made the decision to terminate life support on her father too early after he was injured in a car accident. Amy often went online and posted about emotional abuse in families, having a mother who was a narcissist, and so forth. In July of 2015, Amy and Ross had a huge blowout with the Scotts over the fourth of July, and again it had to do with the children. Amy refused to let her parents see the kids after that and they were devastated. Amy’s social media posts about her mother grew so vitriolic that her aunt privately messaged her and asked that she please take them down and consider her mother’s feelings.
Amy and Ross were married about a week before the murders, and the Cathy and Mike told family that they had apologize to Amy for the fight in July and she had agreed to let them see the kids again.
Amy and Ross told police they had taken the kids to visit Ross’s family in Blythewood over Halloween weekend. Their stories about when exactly they’d gotten back home over the weekend varied on whenever you talked to them. However, cell phone records placed the couple’s phones at their residence during the time period the murders would have occurred. Police were also looking closely at Ross Vilardi. He had been a marine and would have received training with the type of knife that was used in the murders. The couple owned a pet grooming business and were well known to be struggling financially—employees at the business, Styles for Miles, said bill collectors often called the shop and the landlord complained about not being paid rent.
The Case Receives National Media Attention
In March of 2023, the Unsolved Mysteries podcast aired an episode on the murders which shed more light on the investigation’s findings and what they believed the motive might be. Anderson County investigator Scotty Hill was interviewed for the podcast. Because of the brutal nature in which the four people were murdered, with Mike, Barbara, and Violet having their throats slashed, investigators believed it was unlikely one person committed the crime. During the search, police found around $20,000 in cash hidden in safe in the master bathroom, but nothing else. Mike’s sister was interviewed for the podcast and said her brother normally kept anywhere between $60,000 to $80,000 in their home.
Police found around $60,000 in cash at the Vilardi’s residence in a safe, which they claimed was part of their income from their business. Family members disputed that claim and said it was well known Amy and her husband were having financial difficulties.
In late March of 2016 Amy and her husband remodeled the Scott’s double wide and moved in. In May of that year, Amy and Ross Vilardi sued the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office as they sought the return of $100,000 in cash, vehicles, and electronics that were taken from the Vilardi and Scott homes as part of the investigation. The lawsuit claimed that the Vilardis believed the items in question had already been tested and were in danger of being destroyed or lost to the Vilardis. This litigation dragged out over several years and included Mike’s sister, Pam Isbell. Eventually, Pam was awarded the two vehicles, the items taken from the double-wide, and $21,400 in cash that had been found in the safe after the murders. Amy and Ross received $34, 890 in cash.
The Vilardis eventually moved to West Columbia, South Carolina and opened up a mobile dog grooming business there. They occasionally provided complimentary services for the K9’s of the Cayce Police Department, according to an article that ran in FITS NEWS.
The television show “Cold Justice” also covered this case on their show in Season 7, and that is where viewers were able to see all the circumstantial evidence against Amy and Ross Vilardi laid out. They examined crime scene photos, re-enacted the murder, analyzed social media posts, cell phone data, and text messages between the couple. By analyzing the Vilardis cash flow, they could see that whenever the two came into any money, they immediately spent it on vehicles and other luxury items. But yet they had a problem paying the bills related to their business and their employees.
Circumstantial Evidence Points to the Vilardis
Their phones showed they were on the property the night of the murder. Based on a text exchange between the two, it sounded like Amy had gone over to the house and called a family meeting, or at least said she wanted to talk to everyone. They were all in the living room together. She texted Ross around 8:36 p.m. “Everybody is up now and talking hahaha take my car and grab a six pack.” Since their kids weren’t there, it implied she was talking about her mom, stepfather, and two grandmothers. Based on the crime scene re-enactment, investigators theorized Amy let Ross into the double-wide, and the attack with the knife began.
Cathy must have run back to the master bedroom to get a handgun, because an empty holster was found in the bedroom. They theorized either Amy or Ross followed her into the bedroom, disarmed her, and then attacked her with the knife and shot her. Then the perpetrator took the gun back into the living room and fired rounds into the bodies of the other family members, even though the wounds from the knife would have killed them first. A bloody shoeprint found at the scene came from an Asics Speedstar sneaker. Surveillance footage of Ross the night of the murders, buying beer at a local QuikTrip, showed him wearing a pair of Asics sneakers. Those sneakers, and the clothing he was wearing in the video, were never found. It doesn’t appear any of the murder weapons were ever found either, but one of the couple’s former employees said she had seen a large, military-style knife in Amy’s car at one point.
In the days before the murders, Amy and Ross were texting about a bill they owed someone at their dog-grooming business in the amount of $7,000. They said they would tell the creditor the bill would be paid after November 2. They had access to the cash inside Mike and Cathy’s home after that date, and they paid the bill. On November 5 of 2015, days after the murder, Amy sent her husband a text that said, “Hey babe, we need to go ahead and run.”
Investigators found a social media message Mike had sent to a customer of his that said, “You have money!” He included a photo showing five one-hundred dollar bills. They were able to trace the serial numbers on those bills back to bills found in Amy and Ross’s home after the crime. They had said that was money they were saving from their pet-grooming business.
On December 15, 2023, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office announced they had arrested Amy Vilardi, now 40, and her husband Rosmore “Ross” Vilardi, age 36 and charged them with four counts of murder in connection with the deaths. In mid-February of this year, a judge in Anderson County officially denied the couple bond. I’ll keep you posted on developments in this case and the trials as they arise.
Leonna Wright Goes Missing
On June 6, 2015, 1-year-old Leonna Wright went missing from the Edgewood Square Apartment Complex, now called Palmetto Village, in Pendleton, South Carolina. When the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office was first contacted, her mother, 23-year-old Kiara Sullivan, and Kiara’s boyfriend, 33-year-old Travis Jones, told investigators that the door to their ground-floor apartment was open when they woke up around 9:25 a.m. and Leonna was gone. The couple thought Kiara’s three-year-old daughter A’riel might have opened the door and Leonna crawled out. After further questioning, more facts came to light. Kiara had gone out the evening before to attend her sister’s bachelorette party and left Travis Jones in charge of 1-year-old Leonna and A’riel. Investigators believed Leonna was already missing from the apartment by the time Kiara returned home around 5:30 in the morning. It was also evident A’riel would not have been able to unlock the door by herself.
Investigators said they lost two days of valuable search time before they came to the conclusion Leonna had been taken from the apartment before Kiara returned home. Travis Jones admitted to using illegal drugs while watching Kiara’s children that night, and pleaded guilty to a child neglect charge and probation violation just a few months after Leonna went missing. He was sentenced to three years at a state prison outside Columbia. Kiara was also charged with child neglect and tested positive for cocaine and marijuana. Three-year-old A’riel had been exposed to methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana. However, when it came to the whereabouts of Leonna, Travis remained tight lipped.
Investigators told the media they had received some disturbing leads, and they diligently tracked each one. They heard that Leonna was murdered and buried at a hog farm, and they said they found no evidence to back up that claim. During the first year she was missing, they also got a tip she had been spotted at a Walmart in Washington state, but again, that didn’t pan out.
In early May of 2016, the Anderson County Sheriff Captain Garland Major and Deputy Chief Carl Anderson traveled to the prison in Bennettsville, South Carolina to speak with Travis Jones once again. He did not want to cooperate with their investigation and asked for legal counsel to be present.
Two People Charged in Leonna’s Death
Five years after baby Leonna disappeared, In July of 2020, police charged Travis Jones with homicide by child abuse. The arrest warrants claimed he had “willfully abandoned and neglected” the infant multiple times before she vanished from the apartment complex. His older brother, Donnie Roderick Jones, was also charged with being an accessory to the crime after the little girl’s death, and charges included destruction or desecration of human remains. When Leonna went missing, neither Kiara nor Travis were in possession of a vehicle so police theorized Travis must have had help moving Leonna from the apartment. At the time, Donnie Jones was already incarcerated in Columbia after being convicted of an unrelated charge of methamphetamine distribution.
However, in mid-December 2021, Anderson County Clerk of Court Richard Shirley announced the murder charges against Travis and Donnie Jones had been dropped.
Sheriff McBride released the following statement:
“On December 15, 2021 the case regarding Leonna Wright was dismissed in a preliminary hearing. Although the Magistrate that issued the arrest warrants for the two defendants originally found probable cause to charge them, a different Magistrate that oversaw the proceeding today found that there was insufficient probable cause to move forward. While I disagree with today’s ruling, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office is committed to seeking justice for Baby Leonna Wright. Our Detectives continue to investigate this incident in hopes to find additional evidence that would lead to the prosecution and conviction of those responsible. When I inherited this case in 2017, I was determined to bring to justice those responsible for Baby Leonna. I am thankful for all of the Detectives that have been involved in this investigation, and am grateful for all of their hard work, effort, and countless manhours spent working on this case. I am confident they will continue their relentless pursuit for justice.”
Eight years after Leonna disappeared family, community members, and representatives from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office gathered together to honor the young girl.
Sheriff Anderson reiterated that he believes he knows exactly what happened to Leonna. He said, “The two people we feel are responsible for Leonna’s death, we feel they are not the type to keep their mouths shut. I think there are some people out there, I would say at least probably a couple of people, that have information they need to get to us.”
During the memorial, community members unveiled a bust of Leonna, and June 6th has now been proclaimed as Leonna Wright Day of Awareness in Anderson and Pendleton, South Carolina. Anyone with information on this case can call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC to leave an anonymous tip.
Show Sources:
Murder of Cathy and Mike Scott, Violet Taylor, and Barbara Scott
Florence Morning News
November 4, 2015
Coroner: 4 people in home shot to death
https://www.newspapers.com/image/986375641
Anderson Independent Mail
November 3, 2015
Family of 4 found dead in home near Pendleton
Page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814600231
Page 2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814600243
The Herald
November 9, 2015
Officials offer reward after home shooting
https://www.newspapers.com/image/718217807
Anderson Independent Mail
November 3, 2016
Quadruple Homicide Unsolved a Year Later
Page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814736108
Page 2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814736137
https://www.wyff4.com/article/south-carolina-quadruple-murder-arrests-anderson/46149491
https://www.fitsnews.com/2023/12/20/anderson-county-massacre-arrests-finally-announced
https://www.foxcarolina.com/2024/02/13/couple-charged-quadruple-homicide-set-be-back-court
Leonna Wright
Anderson Independent Mail
June 17, 2015
Tears, prayers during rally for missing baby
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/814712560
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/814712571
Anderson Independent Mail
May 29, 2016
Event marks missing child’s birthday
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/815071434
Page 2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/815071457
Anderson Independent Mail
January 3, 2016
Disappearance of 1-year-old Pendleton girl
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814603978
Anderson Independent Mail
February 17, 2017
Reward now $10K for missing baby
https://www.newspapers.com/image/814729533
https://www.wyff4.com/article/investigators-9-years-babys-disappearance/61022239
