Murder Trials Advance in Three States

Jury selection and opening statements have begun in South Carolina in the trial of Sheridan Fogle, charged with killing his girlfriend, Penni Whiteside, in 2022. Police found Whiteside’s remains in June 2024 in a wooden box buried beneath a fire pit at their Myrtle Beach home; prosecutors say Fogle admitted strangling her, while the defense acknowledges his role in her death but argues he acted in self-defense amid a history of domestic violence. Fogle has pleaded not guilty and faces decades in prison if convicted; a judge found him competent to stand trial despite reported mental-health conditions. In Montana, Cameron Francis is on trial for the 2025 killing of Kimberly Goodson and attempted murder of a police officer; prosecutors allege he fired at a patrol car after killing Goodson, while the defense disputes that the shots targeted the officer. In West Virginia, Gregory Casto’s trial has begun over the 2014 killing of Cindy Ball Dilo and concealment of her body, and another person was indicted as an accessory after the fact.