Man guilty in 2000 killing
Traffic stop led police to remains in sunken car

By Schuyler Kropf

The Post and Courier

Friday, January 8, 2010

For eight years, the remains of an Iraqi man who came to America after the first Gulf War remained hidden, stuffed in the trunk of his car at the bottom of a McClellanville creek.

Sitting between his lawyers Rodney Davis (left) and Cody Groeber, Jeffrey Hermann closes his eyes Thursday after being found guilty of murder at the Charleston County Judical Center. He received a 45 year prison sentence.

Ala Hassan Sarhan -- "Ali" to his friends -- could have stayed forgotten, just another player in the world of Charleston cocaine dealing. Until a break came from the oddest of places.

A witness -- wanted for an unrelated traffic warrant -- became so anxiety-ridden at the prospects of being locked up, that he began to talk, officials said. What he told authorities helped put Sarhan's killer behind bars.

A Charleston County jury on Thursday took less than four hours to convict Jeffrey M. Herrmann, 28, of murdering Sarhan with a handgun in the summer of 2000. Following a three-day trial, Circuit Judge Kristi Harrington sentenced Herrmann to 45 years behind bars.

The strange turn of events was viewed as remarkable around the courthouse because a minor traffic offense of driving on a suspended license helped solve a murder.

"It was Jason Cumbee who didn't want to go to jail," 9th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Chad Simpson said of the state's confinement-scared witness. "He took police to a body."

Sarhan was last seen during mid-July 2000, though authorities never categorized his disappearance as a "cold case." Few people knew all of his background. He was known to have entered the United States as a political refugee from Iraq in 1992 and wore a prosthetic leg.

Once in America, authorities think Sarhan, 31, moved often before landing in the Lowcountry, living in a Ladson campground. He got a job at a local mill and began selling drugs. Officials think Herrmann plotted to kill Sarhan over a debt and for the large amount of money and drugs he was known to carry.

But the case might never have been solved if it weren't for that traffic charge.

In the summer of 2008, police tracked Cumbee down to serve a bench warrant. He was wanted for third-offense driving under suspension. If convicted, the charge might have been settled with as little as a fine or a short term in jail.

Remains belong to missing man, published 08/10/08

Missing man was refugee from Iraq, published 08/25/08

But Cumbee became nervous, authorities said, and began talking about a body and an unsolved killing.

After some half-hearted trips through the Francis Marion National Forest, Cumbee finally directed police to a boat landing on Wambaw Creek where Sheriff's Office divers found Sarhan's Chevrolet Lumina in 15 feet of water. His skeletal remains were still in the trunk, a bullet hole in his skull. Herrmann was charged with murder.

In court this week, prosecutors used the testimony of Cumbee and other witnesses Herrmann had confided in after the killing.

What they think happened is that Herrmann shot Sarhan and drove him around looking for a dump site. He saw Cumbee and told him of his plans to burn the car in the national forest. Later, it was decided to simply gun the car's engine down a boat landing.

Cumbee still faces a charge of accessory to murder after the fact.

Prosecutors say that given Sarhan's drug-dealing ways, he could easily have ended up in a Charleston courtroom one day.

"Ala Hassan was no angel," Simpson said. "But what Ala Hassan did not deserve is a bullet to the ear at the hands of that man right there, Jason Herrmann."

Herrmann did not testify in his defense. He also declined to speak to the court afterward, with his legal team citing a possible appeal.

Afterward, a member of the jury said it was an odd case to sit through, given there was little direct evidence to a killing that happened almost a decade ago.

"We all sat there and said we wanted to find him innocent," said one juror who asked not to be identified. But the collection of details to the killing that others knew about, all pointed back to Herrmann as the source, she said.

After the sentencing, Herrmann was immediately led away to begin serving his sentence. No one from Hassan's family in Iraq was ever located by local officials.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at skropf@postandcourier.com or 937-5551.