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Woman
gives emotional testimony in kidnapping, battery case
Date:
3/19/2008
By
Nadine Parks
The Post
and Courier
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A half-dressed, battered and bloody woman emerged from a North Charleston
flower shop last spring.
On Wednesday, Beth Ferguson had her moment in court and identified shop
worker Lemar "Tommy" Mack as the man who held a knife to her throat, choked her,
kicked her face repeatedly and left her bound and gagged in a locked closet.
Ferguson hyperventilated and was in tears as she took the stand.
Mack, 46, whose wife owns Carolina Florist on Ashley Phosphate Road, faces
charges of kidnapping, armed robbery and assault and battery with intent to
kill. He made no plea because Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson filed a
life without parole notice, said Mack's attorney, Beattie Butler. Had Mack
pleaded guilty, he would have faced life in prison.
Wilson established through witness testimony that Mack worked at the flower
shop and lived on the second floor. Ferguson had stopped at the shop April 10 to
pick out a corsage for her son's prom. She recounted for the jury the ordeal of
the brutal attack by a man who came from upstairs.
"I was screaming, 'Jesus, save me,' " Ferguson said. "I remember thinking,
'I'm not going to live.' "
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