Joseph Carl Shaw  Joseph Carl Shaw (March 31, 1955 – January 11, 1985) was an American convicted murderer from Kentucky who was the first person to be executed by the State of South Carolina after the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the use of capital punishment by the states in 1976. Shaw was executed for the 1977 murders of three people in Richland County, South Carolina. One of his accomplices, James Terry Roach, was also sentenced to death, and was executed in 1986. Joseph Carl Shaw was born to Mary and Melvin Shaw in Louisville, Kentucky and grew up in the suburb of Jeffersontown. He attended St. Edwards Catholic Middle School, and played on the football team. Shaw also regularly attended church and became an altar boy. After leaving St. Edwards he moved on to Jeffersontown High School, but dropped out before graduating. After leaving high school, Shaw enlisted into the army and later sought admission to the Military Police School. He graduated in 1975 and was stationed at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. It was there that he met James Terry Roach, Ronald Eugene Mahaffey and Robert Neil Williams. The four men would often spend their days getting high and drinking alcohol. Shaw also got into a relationship with a woman around this time as well, but the relationship ended abruptly on October 16, 1977. After the sudden end of his relationship, Shaw, Roach, Mahaffey, and Williams consumed a large number of drugs and alcohol. Wanting revenge, Shaw and his accomplices decided to go out and find a woman to rape. In the early hours of October 17, the four men came across Betty Swank. The men offered her a ride in their car. Once Swank got inside, she saw that they were in possession of a gun. She was kidnapped, raped, and then murdered by Shaw, who shot her with a .22 caliber pistol. Her dead body was found in a mobile home park. On October 29, 1977, Shaw, Roach, and Mahaffey spent the morning taking drugs and drinking alcohol. In the afternoon they decided to see if they could find a girl to rape. The three men drove to a baseball park northeast of Columbia where they saw a parked car occupied by Thomas Taylor and Carlotta Hartness. Shaw pulled up beside the parked car and Roach pointed a .22 caliber rifle through the car window at Taylor demanding money. Taylor gave the men his wallet while Shaw forced Hartness into the back seat of his car.