The Hit-and-Run Death of Davis McClendon

Greenwood I lived here half my life everyone knows everyone and their business I have decided to set the story straight it's still surreal I still think maybe I'll wake up we're out for my birthday I remember I was just sitting at the bar and he sat down beside me and we just talked to the rest of the night you were there the night she met David I was I was there that night did it seem like there was chemistry immediately I would immediately Davis he was so kind and him in his heart was huge we enjoyed each other so much it was an amazing six months Meredith her and Davis they would go in a way weekends a lot I liked him his smile was so contagious and he's just such a sweet guy I would have never expected this to happen ever good week carry 9-1-1 but it's a one-person car wreck okay it was a car wreck if somebody is tired I pull up right beside Davis's car and he wasn't in his car and that's when I noticed his airbags were out so then also that's when I kind of started looking at the car more noticed that his front tire was smashed in and I remember looking and I noticed there's a body Merritt just started like screaming like who is it who is it and you look over mm-hmm what do you think you were looking at Davis he was laying there and his head was rested on the slot like a pillow and he was shirtless and his face was covered in blood was there anything about the scene that struck you as odd Davis being all the way on the other side of the road the car being wrecked like none of that I couldn't piece anything together Davis's car was way over there and his body was way down here and I was like well how did he end up down here that's quite a distance yeah here it is quite a distance originally it came out as a as a possible traffic accident and then once officers arrived on scene they realized it was more than that a lot of people think it was an auto accident well no it wasn't I do believe that this was an accident and not an intentional killing it was a murder I was in shock I was like it doesn't even make sense the photographs of the crime scene the text messages from Davis's phone the ring videos looking at everything and the totality of the case was very powerful how can any of this possibly happen there's so many things missing from the story and once I kind of get that out there then I can close the chapter and 1028 Whiskey Echo Victor 253 it was May 7th 2023 just after 1 00 a.m when authorities responded to a reported road accident on a secluded Dead End Street in Greenwood South Carolina start roping this off because this is going to be a crime scene at the edge of the nearby Woods they would find 46 year old Davis McClendon's body but what they saw at first was on the road itself a shirt a shoe and a mangled sedan and there was significant damage to the offender it was a BMW 5 Series similar to this one we're using to demonstrate the position of the vehicle that night after first responders had locked everything down Greenwood County Sheriff's Office investigator Patrick Durkin arrived to photograph the scene the front driver's side wheel was turned slightly whatever had transpired at this deserted Crossroads Durkin's job was to freeze it in time first responders had thought Davis McClendon's injuries seemed consistent with having being hit by a vehicle though no other vehicle relating to the collision was there they'd found Davis's body about 50 feet away from the BMW leading them to suspect he'd been outside his car when he was hit there was no rain or anything that would potentially wash anything away so the main thing I focused on was the vehicle Durkin says he noticed some strange damage to the BMW usually when we would you think of a normal fender bender it'll just kind of be pressed into it and this was torn back like a tuna can in a sense it had made authorities wonder if it was a hit and run or something more sinister those airbags were out and a phone was on the front passenger seat Durkin saw more debris in the road but nothing particularly telling the assumption was that he was struck by a vehicle investigator Ronnie Powell from the Greenwood County Sheriff's Office says authorities had learned more by speaking to two women at the scene Meredith Haney and Megan McGovern who called 9-1-1 Megan often babysat for Meredith's three children they provided statements of what they saw and what had occurred all night long what did Meredith say she pretty much gave a summary of the whole back story that she had been dating Davis Meredith had told authorities that Davis left a club they'd been in that night calling her minutes later from the road saying he was parked at the intersection of Avid Road and Sawgrass Place when he'd put her on hold and then failed to come back on the line Meredith was worried and got a ride there from Megan it was Megan the babysitter who'd gotten out of her car and was the first to see Davis's body that news must have been stunning yeah it was devastating it was it was crushing Davis's body had been Davis McClendon was the ultimate people person without an enemy in the world. Say his friends, Chip Funderburk. Everybody loved Davis. He was just awesome. Zach Calhoun. He loved big. And Johnny Coates. And what Zach said, he was everyone's best friend. He was. He loved everyone. But none of them could remember Davis ever mentioning the specifics of his love life. Not until he met Meredith Haney. He told me that he had met somebody and they had just kind of been chatting and, you know, enjoying getting to know each other. You know, it seemed like a good thing, seemed like a positive thing for sure. Calhoun says Davis had gone through a divorce, but the end of his marriage hadn't done anything to weaken his devotion as a father and a friend, even to the residents of the retirement home where he worked. He was the most empathetic person I've ever met. More than four months before Davis died, on the night of December 23rd, 2022, Meredith was at that club, celebrating her 39th birthday with her best friends. She says they were wearing their worst Christmas sweaters when the handsome stranger struck up a conversation. Then I think he text on Christmas Day and then the next day and then the next. And you just kept. You just kept on talking. Until meeting Davis, she says she'd been keeping her head down. Just about six months earlier, she had left her husband of 10 years, a local auto body shop owner named Bud Ackerman. And she was struggling to balance parenting their three kids and her job as a grammar school teacher. She says she knew getting involved with someone new would not be easy. Was there any hesitancy about moving forward with that? There, I mean, there was. She says, first, Davis wanted to make sure she had no intention of reconciling her marriage. He didn't want to be the reason that, you know, we didn't get our family back together. So we made sure from the get-go that that wasn't going to be an issue. And it just, it just happened. They would have less than six months. Six months together. Could you start to guess what may have happened, how it was hit? The night of Davis's death, at the site, investigator Patrick Durkin noticed something beyond the strangeness of the crashed car and Davis's distance from it. There was an oil slick in the road. It's still here. Just over a year later, it's still here. But there was a number of footprints and some tire tracks that were. leading away from this oil stain. And what did that tell you when you saw it? Well, we knew that there was some type of impact to the vehicle. And then we knew there was oil and tire marks that left from here. It looked like evidence from the vehicle that hit Davis. You guys are looking around and you realize the oil continues? You could see it was very obvious that there was tire marks that had gone back down the road. And you could see it was very obvious that there was tire marks that had gone back down the road. on a streetlight post. - It was about maybe this high. - And from there, there was a trail of oil that had led down the road into the distance. - It's breadcrumbs, basically. - In a manner of speaking. - You know, we just have to do the investigation and see what evidence is there and see where it leads us to. ♪ - There was a trail that led from the incident location. - Investigator Ronnie Powell says by the time authorities started following that oil trail from the crash site, they had a solid hunch where it might lead. Davis-McClendon's girlfriend, Meredith Haynes, had told them she'd suspected where he had been going when he left her at the bar that night to meet her estranged husband, Bud Ackerman. And it turns out the oily evidence led right to Ackerman's parents' house. - Garage is open. - He'd been living there since separating from Meredith about a year earlier. - Sheriff's office. - Yes, sir. - Authorities' body cameras were rolling. - He kind of walked up and, you know, almost was expecting us. - Bud Ackerman and his father were both standing near the garage. - Are there some kids here? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay, whose kids are they? - Mine. - Yours and who? - My wife. - Okay. - Bud had spent the day with his three kids at a local festival. He and his wife Meredith had a custody arrangement and it was his night with the kids. But in the driveway, authorities noticed his white Ford F-250 pickup. - That was wild. - With oil leaking from the undercarriage, they also noticed a crack in the grill and other evidence that suggested the vehicle had hit someone. - That's a palm mark. - Investigators turned to Bud. - Do you have your ID on you? - I do not. - Okay, just step over here for me. - Authorities say Bud told them he would not answer questions without his lawyer present. But from speaking with Meredith, they learned she had a contentious mind about his relationship with her soon-to-be ex-husband and came to suspect a jealous Bud Ackerman had mowed Davis McClendon down. Looking at the scene, they deduced Davis had been standing outside his BMW, as shown in this CBS News animation based on their investigation. They suspect Bud's pickup truck sideswiped the sedan and hit Davis, carrying him on the vehicle's grill and depositing his body across the road. Meredith says Bud had been upset since reaching out to her days earlier when he found out she was dating Davis. - He texted me. - What did he text you? - He said something about, "M Meredith, how could you?" - What was your reaction to that text? - I think it was hurt, like I was, I felt bad because I just don't like to hurt people's feelings. I don't like people to be hurt. So I felt bad. - What had begun years earlier as a promising marriage that would bear three kids had fallen apart. - He was a good father. He was a really good dad. - Bud was from a prominent local family and he was a business owner, but Meredith says his work had become stressful. - I started to notice like some depression and things like that. That I've never seen before. - She says he started drinking a lot. And the more he drank, she says, the more unpredictable he became. - There was screaming, cussing. - You felt threatened? - Absolutely. - Meredith says he never laid a hand on her, but destroyed her sense of self. - The house was never clean enough. There were never enough groceries. It was so loud. And vulgar. It was very degrading. - Then she says she noticed her husband was starting to become paranoid. She remembers being in her closet one day and noticing a strange pillow. - They'd cut a hole in it. - According to Meredith, there was a hidden camera inside. - And then I started finding more of them. - What other places did you find cameras? - Oh, there was one hidden in our dresser that faced the bed. Found one in a bush in the front yard. He put them in all the kids' rooms. - She says that was the last straw. They separated in the spring of 2022. - I could breathe. I could be me again. - Meredith says the separation seemed to help Bud too. That he'd stopped drinking and kept going to church with her and the kids. But by then she decided it was too late. - When I was done, I was done. - And starting again with someone new seemed like a distant dream, Meredith says. Until that night, Davis McClendon sauntered up and sat down in her life. They tried to keep things low key at first. Meredith says she never wanted to rub Bud's nose in it. - So what did you all do? - We would go out of town. - But Meredith says they knew they couldn't sneak around forever. And it had started seeming like her new relationship with Davis was a forever kind of thing. - We talked about sitting on the porch, rocking chairs at 80. It was just a different kind of relationship. - But after Bud found out, there were new complications. - He accused you of cheating. - Yeah. - Even though you were weeks away from your divorce. - Right. - Meredith says Bud actually called Davis and asked him to back off until the divorce was official. - What was Davis's reaction to that request? - I think he agreed. But then we talked about it and decided that was just giving him another chance. Another little piece of control. - And on the night Davis died, she says Bud seemed out of control. Back at his parents' house, investigators now had a warrant and were finding more clues that Ackerman had been at the crash site. - Oily footprints. Oily footprints. - At about 6:30 a.m. on May 7th, 2023, Bud Ackerman was arrested. He would be charged with the murder of Davis McClendon. - We think there's enough evidence at the scene to prove of what occurred. - So by the end of the night, you already have someone in custody. - Yes. - What's left to do? - Well, that's just the beginning. - Because it turns out Bud Ackerman did have a story to tell. He says, Davis was standing near the middle of a dark road, approximately shown in this CBS News animation. Bud says he didn't see Davis until it was too late, that hitting him had been an accident. And Bud's team says they can prove it. - Drink up, baby. Fantasy Football Happy Hour is here to get you wins, get some laughs. Matthew Barry here and my podcast, Fantasy Football Happy Hour, has the sleepers, busts, and start-sit advice you need to win your league. We're diving into the tape. We're crunching the numbers to bring you sleepers, busts, weekly start-sit advice. Whether you're defending a title or desperately avoiding last place, I've got you covered every single weekday. The bar is open. It's Fantasy Football Happy Hour with Matthew Barry, wherever you get your podcasts. Investigators are confident they could prove Bud Ackerman's trunk had hit and killed Davis McClendon. But they knew proving Ackerman had done it on purpose might be harder. - Building a case starts from that night. - And when investigators looked at that night, they learned Bud Ackerman had been tracking Davis and Meredith's whereabouts for hours. - He was trying to find them that night. He was trying to find them that night. And he was not happy about this whole situation. - Using security video, phone records, and even data from Bud's own truck, authorities built a timeline. They began with Meredith's phone, Lieutenant Matthew Womack of the Greenwood County Sheriff's Office. - We were able to extract the information, such as the calls and the texts. - A slew of calls and text messages Bud had made to Meredith leading up to the collision. At 8.54 p.m., Bud texts Meredith, Why do you hate me? I just don't understand. She doesn't respond to him. She's out with Davis at a local restaurant. We went to dinner at Break on the Lake. You see Davis and Meredith having dinner. And being interrupted by Bud's attempts to reach her. What was the FaceTime conversation like? Where are you? Who are you with? Why are you doing this to me? Did you tell him where you were? I feel like at some point in the conversation, either he could tell where I was because of what's around me, or I finally did tell him it was one or the other. So at that point, he knows that you're out with Davis. While Meredith continued her date with Davis, security cameras catch Bud Ackerman at 10.40 p.m., arriving at a popular Greenwood club called Key West. You can see Bud. You know, he's talking to people, interacting, consuming alcohol. The video shows Bud spent about an hour and a half at Key West, then called Meredith again. How did he sound on the phone? Intoxicated. What's an intoxicated Bud sound like? Vulgar. Soon after midnight, Ackerman had left Key West. About a half hour later, cameras show Bud's truck circling in front of Break on the Lake. But by then, Meredith and Davis were no longer at the restaurant. You can see his vehicle drive through the parking lot. He's looking for them. Lieutenant Womack says before long, investigators would learn just how far Bud Ackerman had gone that night to find Meredith and Davis. Though Ackerman himself wasn't talking, critical information would emerge from another digital witness, his truck. It's a box about this big that goes into the backside of the dash. Womack says in some cars and trucks, the infotainment systems, as they're known, store detailed information about how the vehicles are being driven. We're in a similar model to Bud's Ford F-250 pickup. So on Bud's vehicle, they were able to pull a significant amount of information. This is just a little snippet. You're talking just in a 24-hour time period. It's over 3,000 miles. It's over 3,000 events. Events including snap measurements of speed, acceleration, and brake pressure. Bud's onboard computer even pinged public Wi-Fi as it passed. Investigators learned that Bud had actually driven by Meredith's house and onto Davis-McClendon Street that night. But while he was driving around looking for them, ironically, they had moved to the Key West Club he had just left. When Davis decides to call Bud, he walked out the back of the bar. It was 12.51 a.m. A few minutes passed, and I went out there to check on him, and he was gone. Did he think he could bring the temperature down? Records show Davis called her minutes later. And what was that conversation? Where are you? And that's when he told me that he was going to meet Bud. Womack says other infotainment system data show that at a bit past 1 in the morning, Davis and Bud had their fatal encounter. And we can tell there was actually an event at 1.11 a.m. on May the 7th. They say Ackerman hit the brakes hard. We could narrow it down to tenths of seconds of when the collision occurred. And according to the computer, seconds after the collision, Ackerman's truck had stopped. At that point in time, Bud's opening the door. He opens the door before he shifts it to park. Womack thinks Ackerman got out of his truck, which was probably leaking from the collision. Remember that puddle of oil in the road near the victim? Then he closes the door, then he gets back in. And then it's shifted to drive at that point in time. Then, say authorities, Ackerman turns his truck around near the lamppost, roughly as you see in this CBS News demonstration based on their investigation. He then drives away, leaking an oil trail all the way to his parents' driveway. Right here, his phone becomes unavailable. The ignition turned off, and it disconnected from his device. What does that tell you? That's when he got home and got out. It started to paint a very clear picture. But Ackerman's attorney, Jack Swirling, paints a different picture. I don't think he intended to run Davis-McClendon over. There's no indication that he's an aggressive or violent individual. Sheriff's office. Yes, ma'am. Nor, says Swirling, is there much to indicate his client was drunk that night. Can I get you to step with me over here for a moment, please? All right. None of the cops who arrested him reported he seemed tipsy. The only one who said he was intoxicated was Meredith. Was he stalking them that night? I think he was trying to find out, confirm that they were together. He wanted to talk to her. According to Swirling, Meredith and Davis had been betrayed McClendon's promise to Bud, to stand down until the Ackermans' marriage was officially over. She couldn't wait another month, and she's out with this guy, and she's cheating on her husband. They are still legally married. South Carolina law calls that adultery. And Swirling says the night Davis died, he let Bud Ackermans' repeated calls and text messages to Meredith get under his skin. Davis got upset about it. And that's where the-- Bud led to them having this meeting. Bud just thought they were going to meet and talk. He says Bud had suggested an innocent and safe place for it to happen. They were supposed to meet at Bud's parents' house, which is about half a mile from that location. Swirling says Ackermans' children were sleeping there that night. So attacking Davis would have been the last thing on his client's mind. You wouldn't meet at your parents' house if you were angry and threatening I'm ready to kill somebody. He says it was Davis who selected the deserted intersection as a new location. And remember how Davis was found without his shirt on that night? Well, Swirling says he believes Davis took it off to prepare for a confrontation. He was ready to fight. Swirling insists Bud Ackerman meant no harm that night. And Bud is about to tell that story to a jury. Your name? William Gray Ackerman, Jr. I'm also good by Bud. Good morning, everybody. We are on the record in the state versus William Bud Ackerman. Prosecutors are determined to prove it was no accident that Bud Ackerman hit Davis McClendon the night he died. So in September of 2024, Assistant Attorneys General John Conrad and John Meadors He intentionally drove his car into the body of Davis McClendon. Start the case off with a bang. Bam! And that's what this case is about. They'll argue Ackerman couldn't stand the fact that his estranged wife was seeing someone. And Bud was searching for Meredith and Davis all over town. Bud Ackerman was not going to let Davis McClendon be with Meredith. That's your house right there. Yes, sir. Meadors and Conrad lead with their strongest evidence. There are actually time-stamped videos from the neighbor's doorbell cameras at the moment of the crash that killed Davis. It shows what they say is Bud's Ford F-250 driving through the frame. Seconds later on the video, what sounds like a crash. Bang! And seconds after that, a series of muffled sounds. What did you hear? I heard somebody yelling. Prosecutors argue it's Bud Ackerman's voice yelling at Davis McClendon after running him down. What it sounded like to me was, what do you want to talk about now?. Bud's yelling, unheavenly expertise. He said to Davis as he was lying on the ground, I think he was glad he was dead. But Bud Ackerman's defense attorney, Jack Swirling, argues the audio is too garbled to prove anything. I've listened to it several times now, and I don't believe you could conclude 100% that that is exactly what he said. The prosecutor then calls Megan McGovern, the Ackerman's babysitter and friend, to describe the moment she'd seen Davis' death. He says she'd seen Davis' body through traumatized teenaged eyes. He had blood coming out of his ears and his nose, and I couldn't, I'm not exactly sure if it was coming out of his mouth or not, because I mean, there's just blood everywhere from his nose and everything. But their star witness is the woman at the center of both men's affection, Meredith Haney, who testifies with the date night security videos as a guide. She tells the jury Bud Ackerman called her when she and Davis were at home. She tells the jury Bud Ackerman called her when she and Davis break on the lake. Did you think he was trying to find you? I did worry, yes. And kept calling after they got to Key West Club. Is that a call from the defendant, Bud Ackerman? Yes, sir. Did you reject that call? Yes. It's 18 seconds later. You get another call. Yes, sir. Well, what did you think about all these calls coming in? I was getting very frustrated and angry. And just, it was getting obsessive. It was getting scary. And she says by the time Davis McClendon left her at the Key West Club after midnight. And is that Davis McClendon leaving the bar? Yes. She was worried Bud might be volatile. So when Davis later called to tell her he was going to meet with Ackerman, she says she wanted to go check on the situation in person and makes clear to the jury that when she saw the scene, she had little doubt who killed her boyfriend. I dove back into Meg's car because I thought that. the only way that Bud would have ever killed somebody would have been to shoot her. Objection. The judge sustains the defense's objection, but Meredith continues. I was scared that he was still out there. Okay, Mr. Swirling, any cross-examination? All right, go for it. Step down, ma'am. Your Honor, the state calls Special Agent Brian Hudak. Digital forensics expert Brian Hudak tells the jury about data in the infotainment system of Ackerman's pickup. Okay. Including some that show Bud was driving in exactly the right place. In Greenwood at the intersection of Avid and Sawgrass. At exactly the right time. Between 1-11-31 and 1-11-32. To be implicated in the deadly collision. He suggests they can even tell the moment of impact. There's something that causes this truck to decelerate very quickly, correct? Correct. And Hudak says the evidence shows Ackerman was going 25, 5 miles per hour. And the amount of detail that that truck had on what Bud did that night is simply breathtaking. Four vehicles on the, completely on the wrong side of the road when it strikes the BMW. Collision reconstruction expert Corporal Christopher Bratcher testifies the dent show Bud's speeding pickup sideswiped Davis' BMW sedan. As shown in that CBS News animation, based on the prosecution's theory, they say Bud was aiming. at Davis, who was standing near the driver's door when he was hit. And that the truck kept going with Davis on the grill until he fell off where authorities found him. But Jack Swirling argues much of the same evidence shows hitting Davis was an accident. We maintain that Mr. Ackerman did not act intentionally in this case. He says Bud Ackerman had no idea Davis was standing outside his car and calls auto forensic. He says he was just trying to get a sense of what was going on. Clendon first. Davis saved my life. You really feel that way? Absolutely. If true, Meredith Haney owes her life, however challenging, to the new man she had once hoped to share it with. How would you like Davis to be remembered? As a hero. For the way he treated people. For his empathy. For his heart. He was just a good person. But Ackerman is not eligible for parole and is expected to be released in 2068. Ackerman is appealing his conviction. Colin from Accounts returns for a brand new season. But what is it? We're friends. We are togetherly We're friendly together. With a dog. Colin from Accounts new season streaming September 10th only on Paramount+.