State v. McGee, 758 S.E.2d 730

Victim Tryon Eichelberger was attacked at home May 3, 2009; he later died from his injuries. A metal winch rod used to pry open a door and a pair of blood-stained white tube socks were found near the scene; DNA later identified McGee’s DNA inside the socks.
Temika Ashford saw a light-skinned Black man on the porch that night (white shirt, jeans, white gloves, holding a metal pipe) and later identified McGee from photo lineups as resembling that person.
A red tractor-trailer was stolen in Camden the day before the attack; it was recovered about a mile from the victim’s home and the truck type would typically carry a winch rod. Surveillance of that theft was broadcast and McGee’s sister recognized him from the footage.
Michelle Perry (cab company dispatcher) identified McGee from a single photo as someone she had seen about a year earlier at Eichelberger’s church; McGee challenged that identification as unduly suggestive.
McGee was indicted for murder and first-degree burglary; the trial court admitted Perry’s identification and the truck-theft evidence as res gestae; a jury convicted McGee and he appealed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of Perry’s identification from a single photo	Identification was unduly suggestive and unreliable; should be suppressed	Photo ID was offered to show McGee knew victim, not as eyewitness ID to the crime; contemporaneous challenges not preserved	Court affirmed admission: Perry was not an eyewitness to the crime; issue of suggestiveness not preserved and her testimony was cumulative to other evidence
Admissibility of truck-theft evidence as res gestae	Truck theft was a prior bad act and should be excluded (or analyzed under Rule 404(b))	Theft was temporally and circumstantially connected to the murder (provided context, access to a winch rod, and placement in area)	Court affirmed admission: theft was part of the res gestae, relevant to context and probative value not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice

Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972) (factors for assessing eyewitness identification reliability)
State v. Wiles, 383 S.C. 151 (2009) (relevance and res gestae framework)
State v. Adams, 322 S.C. 114 (1995) (res gestae can supply context and prevent fragmenting the narrative)
State v. Dennis, 402 S.C. 627 (2013) (Rule 403 balancing for prior-bad-act evidence)
State v. Baccus, 367 S.C. 41 (2006) (appellate standard of review in criminal cases)
State v. Traylor, 360 S.C. 74 (2004) (identification reliability factors analogous to Neil v. Biggers)