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Robert Ford Jr. and his son, Robbie Ford, were returning home from dinner when they were brutally attacked outside their residence in Horry County. A prosecutor later described the scene as a “bloodbath,” leaving their tranquil rural neighborhood in complete shock.
The chilling orchestrator of this double murder would eventually be unveiled in a story featured on Oxygen’s crime series, Snapped. The case began to unravel on August 18, 2018, when authorities were alerted to a burned-out vehicle abandoned in a soybean field in Horry County.
“It was unusual,” commented Retired Horry County Detective Lieutenant Peter Cestare. “There was this car just sitting in the middle of the field, and no one knew how it ended up there.”
Though someone had attempted to set the vehicle on fire, the blaze extinguished itself due to the closed windows that starved it of oxygen. The car remained mostly intact and was traced back to 25-year-old Robbie Ford.
“That was unusual, because, you know, here’s this car sitting in the middle of their field,” Retired Horry County Det. Lt. Peter Cestare remarked. “They had no idea how it had gotten there.”
It was apparent someone had tried to burn the empty vehicle, but without sufficient oxygen to fuel the fire because of the closed windows, the flames went out, leaving the vehicle—registered to Robbie, 25—mostly intact.
Law enforcement officers headed to the Conway home where Robbie lived with his father about 15 miles away and made a grisly discovery. Near the home’s backdoor, Robert lay dead on the ground with Robbie lying nearby in a grassy area of the yard.
“It’s a bloodbath,” Horry County Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said. “Something really bad has happened.”
Both men had been shot, with Robert suffering a close range shot under his chin and Robbie suffering wounds to his shoulder and the back of his head.
Although both men’s wallets were missing, there were no signs of robbery at the home and the door was still locked.
“Investigators start asking themselves, is there something about either of these victims that would cause someone to target them?” Horry County Senior Assistant Solicitor Mary Ellen Walter explained. “They’re really looking to who would have a motive to kill them?”
Robert Ford’s Family Enjoyed a “Close” Bond
The Fords had no known enemies and Robert—a lifelong resident of Conway—was very active in his church, while Robbie, a college architecture student, had also been “very highly thought of,” Walter said.
After news of the killings began to spread, Robert’s daughter Samantha Rabon arrived at the crime scene.
“She seemed pretty shocked about the whole incident,” Cestare remembered. “Kind of a normal reaction you would expect from a daughter.”
Samantha was a product of Robert’s first marriage and had always been close to her father, despite the “chilled” relationship Richardson noted Robert had with his ex-wife.
“Samantha was always the apple of his eye,” friend Mindy Williamson recalled. “She had a great relationship with her dad. She loved both her parents very much.”
After his divorce, Robert married a second time and had Robbie. But in 2016, tragedy struck when Robert’s wife Melda died, leaving the grieving father to turn to his children for support.
“There were quite a number of text messages. They would spend time with each other, visit with each other,” Walter said. “So at first blush the family certainly seemed very close.”
Samantha told investigators she couldn’t imagine who would have wanted to hurt her family but did remember a break-in at the home one year earlier, when a .38 caliber revolver, jewelry and a laptop were stolen.
After talking with a neighbor, who heard gunshots and a scream, investigators learned that the double homicide had likely occurred the night before around 8:45 p.m.
Cigarette Butt Gives Investigators Clue to the Killer
Investigators caught their first break in the case while examining the scene in the soybean field. They found cigarette butts on the ground and a discarded ski mask inside the vehicle.
Weeks later, they learned that the DNA from the same person had been found on both the cigarettes and hat, but without any matches in the national database, they were unable to link it to a suspect.
Meanwhile, investigators learned that Samantha, a married mom of three, had been the only person with a financial motive to carry out the crime as the sole surviving heir to her father’s home, property and savings, totaling nearly $1 million.
Yet, she was captured on surveillance footage at a convenience store at the time of the murders, ruling her out as the shooter.
As the months passed, Samantha moved into her father’s old house and began to lay claim to the life insurance policies that had once listed her half-brother Robbie as the primary beneficiary.
As Horry County Senior Assistant Solicitor Leigh Waller noted, “I think that got certainly got investigators’ attention.”
Suspects Identified in Robert Ford and Robbie Ford’s Murder
Then two years after the murders, with help from a company that specializes in ancestral DNA, investigators identified the suspected shooter as Randy Grainger, who had a criminal history.
Phone records showed that the night of the murder Randy called his girlfriend Teresa Martin, Samantha’s distant relative. Investigators brought Teresa in for questioning, and she eventually admitted that Randy was hired by Samantha to “kill her daddy,” for $20,000. She provided him with the same gun that had been taken from her dad’s house a year earlier.
As Teresa explained, “She wanted it done before [Robbie] left for college because she knew, if her—just her daddy got killed, that she would have to split everything.”
Teresa also confessed to driving Randy to the property that day, where she said he used a key to get inside the house and lay in wait for the two men. When he heard them coming home, he went outside and opened fire.
All three were arrested in connection to the double homicide. According to authorities, after the arrest, investigators also found suspicious searches on Samantha’s phone including “how quickly you can clean up a double homicide” and “does god forgive murderers.”
Teresa pleaded guilty in 2023 to being an accessory and was given probation in exchange for her cooperation. Randy was found guilty for two counts of murder and arson at trial and was sentenced to two life terms.
His sentence was later reduced to one life term after Randy—who claimed he was never paid for the murders—agreed to testify against Samantha in her 2024 trial. Despite proclaiming her innocence, Samantha was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.