THE MALACHITE RING
Nancy “Bambi” Mazetis, the Myrtle Beach Murder That Refuses to Stay Buried
By RICHIE D. MOWREY for The Sassy Gazette
The Gossip You Didn’t Know You Needed
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Editor’s Note
Public-records requests have been submitted to Horry County and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division seeking surviving investigative, forensic, and evidence-custody records related to Nancy Mazetis’s case.
This article will be updated if either agency provides additional information.
Case at a Glance
Victim: Nancy “Bambi” Mazetis
Location: Myrtle Beach and Horry County, South Carolina
Date found: June 26, 1978
Cause of death: Severe beating and gunshot wound to the neck
Discovery site: A dragline ditch near U.S. Highway 501 and the Intracoastal Waterway
Case status: Unsolved
Investigating agency: Horry County Police Department
Nearly fifty years ago, someone took Nancy Mazetis away from the life she was building beneath the Myrtle Beach sun.
They beat her.
They shot her in the neck.
They left her in a muddy excavation ditch miles from the neon, music, and ocean air that had defined her young life.
Then the years began swallowing the evidence.
Witnesses scattered. Memories weakened. A suspect was questioned, but never charged. Hurricane Hugo may have destroyed parts of the investigative file. A mysterious review occurred around 2001, but the public was never told what prompted it or what investigators found.
Nancy’s mother died without knowing who murdered her daughter.
Her sisters kept asking questions.
The system kept offering fragments.
But Nancy’s story did not disappear.
Her name survived.
Her family survived.
And somewhere, perhaps beneath her fingernails, inside an evidence locker, or buried in the conscience of someone who lived through the summer of 1978, the truth may still be waiting.
The Girl They Called Bambi
Long before Nancy Mazetis became the center of an unsolved homicide investigation, she was simply Bambi to the people who loved her.
According to the Carolina Crimes podcast, the nickname came from Nancy’s large, doe-like eyes.
It was affectionate.
Personal.
The kind of nickname that belonged inside family kitchens, crowded apartments, music-filled rooms, and conversations between sisters.
Nancy was born into a Massachusetts family with Lithuanian roots on her father’s side and Italian heritage through her mother, Angela “Angel” Mazetis.
She grew up alongside her sisters, Linda and Donna, in communities including Hull and Randolph.
Family members remembered Nancy as artistic, musical, athletic, independent, and intensely adventurous.
She could look at an image and recreate it.
She could hear a song and quickly find the harmony.
She was curious about the world and unwilling to live a life designed by someone else.
Nancy reportedly left high school early and carved out her own path. That path took her far from Massachusetts, including a reported trip to Alaska.
Eventually, it brought her south.
To Myrtle Beach.
To work.
To friends.
To the ocean.
To a future she believed belonged to her.
Nancy was not drifting without purpose.
She was working.
She was building connections.
She was imagining what came next.
Someone decided there would be no next.
Neon on the Grand Strand
Myrtle Beach, Summer 1978
Myrtle Beach in 1978 was exploding.
The Grand Strand swelled every summer with tourists, seasonal workers, bartenders, waitresses, musicians, college students, military personnel, construction crews, and young people chasing freedom beneath the Carolina heat.
The days belonged to hotels, restaurants, golf courses, arcades, beaches, and construction sites.
The nights belonged to neon.
Pool tables.
Live music.
Alcohol.
Late shifts.
Strangers who became friends before sunrise.
It was a city built on movement.
People arrived.
People worked.
People partied.
People left.
That constant turnover created opportunity.
It also created anonymity.
Nancy embedded herself in Myrtle Beach’s hospitality economy. She reportedly worked at the Sea Mist Resort, a massive oceanfront complex on the southern end of the city.
Accounts describe her as a waitress who may also have served golfers or resort guests.
It was demanding work.
Hospitality employees often became invisible while standing directly in front of hundreds of people every day.
They remembered faces, drink orders, bad tippers, flirtations, arguments, and men who mistook friendliness for invitation.
Nancy reportedly lived near 21st Avenue South, close to the beach and within manageable distance of the Sea Mist.
She also spent time at My Brother’s Tavern, a local gathering place where workers, bartenders, pool players, and regulars gathered to unwind.
Her world was social.
But it was not rootless.
Nancy had friends.
She had routines.
She had people who knew her.
That matters because whoever killed her may have known those routines too.
My Brother’s Tavern
The Social Circle Police Could Not Afford to Ignore
My Brother’s Tavern was part of Nancy’s social world.
It was where friends gathered.
Where people played pool.
Where workers decompressed after long shifts.
Where acquaintances became familiar faces.
And where someone may have seen Nancy during the final days of her life.
Nancy’s friend Diane Bevis later recalled that members of Nancy’s circle had suspicions about who may have killed her.
That statement sits inside this case like a match waiting near gasoline.
What did they suspect?
Who did they suspect?
Did several friends name the same person?
Did anyone see Nancy leave with someone?
Did someone behave differently after the murder?
Did anyone suddenly leave Myrtle Beach?
The public does not know.
And nearly five decades later, that silence has become part of the crime scene.
The Road She Would Not Have Taken
The Hitchhiking Experience That Changes Everything
Hitchhiking was common in the 1970s.
Nancy reportedly wanted no part of it.
According to her family, she had experienced a frightening incident while hitchhiking before her murder. Afterward, she became deeply reluctant to accept rides from strangers.
That detail is one of the most important behavioral clues in the entire case.
If Nancy no longer got into vehicles with people she did not know, then how did she end up miles west of her home and workplace at an isolated construction site near U.S. 501?
There are only a handful of possibilities.
She entered a vehicle with someone she knew.
She entered a vehicle with someone familiar enough to feel safe.
She was deceived.
Or she was forced.
The first possibility has haunted Nancy’s family for decades.
Her sister Linda has said she believes Nancy knew the person who killed her.
Not because Nancy trusted everyone.
Because she may have trusted that person.
- A coworker.
- A regular customer.
- A friend.
- A romantic acquaintance.
- Someone from the nightlife scene.
- Someone familiar enough to lower her guard.
That does not identify a killer.
But it makes the image of Nancy willingly accepting a ride from a whole stranger much harder to defend.
The Vanishing Hours
The final chapter of Nancy’s life is filled with gaps.
There is no complete public timeline identifying:
- her final work shift
- her last verified conversation
- the last person known to have seen her alive
- where she slept during her final nights
- whether she was planning to leave Myrtle Beach
- whether she was preparing to return to Massachusetts
- whether she left a bar, apartment, or workplace with someone
Some friends were reportedly uncertain whether Nancy was still living at the apartment near 21st Avenue South.
Why?
Had she moved?
Was she staying with someone?
Had there been an argument?
Was she preparing to go home?
Where Nancy spent her final forty-eight hours may be one of the most important missing pieces in the case.
The absence of a clearly documented missing-person report also raises questions.
Perhaps the period between her disappearance and death was extremely short.
Perhaps friends assumed she had gone somewhere voluntarily.
Perhaps the transient culture of Myrtle Beach made an absence feel less alarming than it should have.
People came and went constantly.
A killer could hide inside that assumption.
Monday Morning in the Mud
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on Monday, June 26, 1978, a 67-year-old mechanical or construction worker entered the area near a dragline ditch close to the Intracoastal Waterway.
There, beyond the tourist strip and far from the oceanfront hotels, he found Nancy.
The discovery site was a rugged construction area near the U.S. 501 bridge, close to what would later become the Fantasy Harbour development.
In 1978, the terrain was hostile.
Mud.
Brush.
Water-filled trenches.
Heavy machinery.
Uneven access roads.
This was not a place a young waitress would casually wander into.
The location suggests the killer may have known the area.
They may have known when workers arrived.
They may have known which paths could support a vehicle.
They may have known where darkness gathered beyond the road.
Or they may have killed Nancy elsewhere and used the ditch only to dispose of her body.
The scene raises another question.
Could one person have transported Nancy through that mud alone?
The Girl Without a Name
Nancy carried no identification when she was found.
Her purse, keys, and personal papers were missing or were never publicly documented as recovered.
For a brief and terrible period, she became an unidentified young woman in a ditch.
Police circulated descriptions and images of her jewelry.
One item stood out.
A silver ring set with green malachite.
A friend identified publicly as Gene recognized it and contacted authorities.
That ring gave Nancy her name back.
The killer may have removed her identification to delay recognition.
But they missed the ring.
A small piece of green stone refused to let Nancy disappear.
What the Body Said
The full autopsy report does not appear to be publicly available.
What reliable reporting does establish is brutal enough.
Nancy had been severely beaten.
She had been shot in the neck.
Over time, online discussions added claims involving strangulation, stabbing, mutilation, and sexual assault.
Those claims must be handled carefully.
True crime can become an echo chamber.
One unsourced claim gets repeated.
Another page copies it.
A video cites the page.
Before long, rumor starts wearing evidence’s coat.
We cannot allow that here.
The available public record supports the beating and gunshot wound.
Sexual assault has not been publicly confirmed.
Neither has strangulation, stabbing, or mutilation.
Possibility is not proof.
Nancy deserves accuracy, not decoration.
The Evidence Left in the Ditch
Several pieces of evidence were reportedly recovered or documented.
Each carries questions that remain unanswered.
Material Beneath Nancy’s Fingernails
Investigators reportedly collected material from beneath Nancy’s fingernails.
That suggests she fought.
She scratched.
She tried to leave a piece of her attacker behind.
If that material survives, it may contain the killer’s DNA.
The public does not know whether it was ever tested using modern forensic methods.
The public does not know whether it survived Hurricane Hugo.
The public does not know whether it remains in the custody of Horry County, SLED, the coroner, or another agency.
That uncertainty may be the central question of the entire case.
Barefoot Impressions
Bare footprints were reportedly found in the mud near Nancy’s body.
If they belonged to Nancy, she may have been alive at the site and tried to flee.
If they belonged to the killer, why were they barefoot?
Were the prints photographed?
Measured?
Cast?
Compared with Nancy’s feet?
No clear public answer exists.
Tire Tracks
Vehicle tracks were reportedly documented near the ditch.
Did they belong to a passenger car?
A truck?
Construction equipment?
Were they compared with vehicles owned by suspects?
Did photographs survive?
Again, the public record falls silent.
The Twenty-Dollar Bill
A $20 bill reportedly remained in Nancy’s pocket.
That was meaningful money in 1978.
A robber would likely have taken it.
A robber may also have taken the malachite ring.
The money left behind weakens robbery as the primary motive.
The Bullet
Nancy was shot in the neck.
Was the bullet recovered?
What caliber was used?
Did the projectile remain in her body?
Was it submitted for comparison?
Does it still exist?
A preserved bullet could still reveal the type of weapon used and potentially connect the murder to another firearm.
The Suspect Who Walked Away
Police reportedly questioned a suspect during the late 1970s.
The person has never been publicly identified.
No arrest followed.
That does not automatically mean investigators cleared them.
A person can remain deeply suspicious without enough evidence to support charges.
Why did police focus on this individual?
Did witnesses place them with Nancy?
Did they know the construction site?
Did they own a vehicle capable of reaching the ditch?
Did their story change?
Did Nancy’s family suspect them?
Was physical evidence ever compared with them?
Were they eliminated?
Or did the case simply stall?
This unidentified suspect remains the most important known investigative lead.
If biological evidence survives, their identity could still be tested.
Alive or dead, they are not beyond the reach of modern science.
Theories, Theories, and More Theories
Theory One: Someone Nancy Knew
This remains the strongest family-supported theory.
Nancy reportedly avoided rides from strangers after a frightening hitchhiking experience.
Yet she ended up miles from her familiar world.
A known driver solves that problem.
Someone familiar could offer a ride without raising alarm.
Someone who knew her schedule could find her alone.
Someone who knew the area could take her beyond the city lights.
The violence may also suggest interpersonal rage.
That does not prove intimacy.
But it keeps this theory firmly on the board.
Theory Two: A Social Encounter Escalated
Linda reportedly theorized that Nancy may have gone somewhere with an acquaintance, possibly to use recreational drugs.
The person may have made an unwanted sexual advance.
Nancy resisted.
The encounter turned violent.
This theory must be handled without victim-blaming.
Drug use does not cause murder.
Going somewhere with someone does not surrender consent.
Rejecting a person does not justify violence.
The theory explains isolation.
It does not excuse what happened.
Theory Three: A Coworker or Customer
Nancy’s work placed her in contact with hundreds of people.
Coworkers knew when her shifts ended.
Customers may have become fixated on her.
A familiar employee or regular customer could have offered a ride that seemed safe.
If surviving Sea Mist employee records exist, they could help reconstruct Nancy’s workplace circle.
Theory Four: Someone from the Nightlife Scene
My Brother’s Tavern may hold some of the missing answers.
Bartenders noticed behavior.
Regulars saw relationships.
Pool players heard arguments.
Someone may have watched Nancy leave.
Someone may have known who frightened her.
Someone may have heard a confession and stayed quiet.
Theory Five: The Escaped Convict
Police reportedly discussed an escaped prisoner as a possible offender.
No specific person has been publicly connected to the theory.
An escapee might need a vehicle, money, or shelter.
But Nancy’s money and ring were left behind.
That weakens a crime driven by robbery or resource acquisition.
The escaped-convict theory may have been a legitimate lead.
It may also have provided investigators with a convenient outsider.
Until a name and evidentiary basis are known, the theory remains fog.
Theory Six: A Construction Worker or Contractor
The ditch was not ordinary terrain.
A construction worker, equipment operator, truck driver, contractor, or surveyor may have understood:
- the access roads
- the machinery schedule
- the mud conditions
- the hidden areas
- when the site would be empty
Contractor records from 1978 could identify people with both access to the area and connections to Nancy’s world.
Theory Seven: A Stranger in the Summer Crowd
Myrtle Beach was filled with tourists, military personnel, seasonal workers, and drifters.
A stranger could kill and leave town before Nancy was identified.
But Nancy’s reported fear of hitchhiking complicates that theory.
A stranger would have needed to force her, deceive her, or approach her in a context where she temporarily felt safe.
Possible?
Yes.
Best supported?
Not currently.
Theory Eight: Samuel Little
Horry County reportedly reviewed local cold cases during the period when serial killer Samuel Little began confessing to murders across the country.
The era and geography justify examination.
The method does not fit well.
Little overwhelmingly strangled his victims.
Nancy was beaten and shot in the neck.
Unless Little provided nonpublic details or can be placed in Myrtle Beach, the theory remains weak.
A famous killer’s name is not evidence.
Theory Nine: Nancy Was Killed Elsewhere
The ditch may have been a disposal site.
A neck gunshot could produce significant blood loss.
If little blood was found near Nancy, she may have been killed in a residence, motel room, vehicle, or another secluded location.
Crime-scene photographs, lividity, drag marks, and soil transfer could help answer that question.
Theory Ten: Silence Protected the Killer
This may be the theory that explains why the case remains unsolved.
Someone may have heard something.
Someone may have seen Nancy with someone.
Someone may have noticed a sudden departure.
Someone may have helped dispose of belongings.
Someone may have protected a friend, lover, employer, or family member.
Silence does not require a grand conspiracy.
It can be built from smaller choices.
Fear.
Loyalty.
Shame.
Self-protection.
Decades later, those choices still shelter whoever killed Nancy.
When a Lifestyle Becomes a Lens
Nancy worked in restaurants.
She spent time in bars.
She followed Myrtle Beach’s nightlife.
She lived independently and built a life outside the narrow script society often handed women in 1978.
None of that made her reckless.
None of it made her disposable.
None of it made her responsible for what happened.
But it may have shaped how institutions saw her.
Women who worked nights, drank in bars, or moved within unconventional social circles were often placed into a less sympathetic category.
Not the perfect victim.
Not the protected daughter.
Not the woman whose disappearance stopped a city.
Instead, the questions drifted toward her.
Was she drinking?
Who was she with?
Did she use drugs?
Why was she out so late?
Those questions can help reconstruct a timeline.
But when they become assumptions, the investigation begins judging the victim instead of hunting the offender.
A victim’s lifestyle should never determine the urgency of their justice.
Nancy’s sister Linda believed police dismissed or undervalued information she tried to provide about Nancy’s relationships and social circle.
The media reported the murder.
Then the headlines faded.
Whether through conscious prejudice, limited resources, institutional culture, or the quiet machinery of assumption, Nancy may have received less urgency because she did not fit a comfortable image of innocence.
Nancy’s lifestyle did not make her harder to save.
It may have made institutions less willing to try.
Justice should never have a dress code, a curfew, or a job application.
The Rot in the Record
The evidence does not prove a grand conspiracy.
It does not prove police intentionally ignored Nancy.
It does not prove anyone protected the killer.
But institutional failure rarely arrives wearing a villain’s cape.
It accumulates quietly.
A family member who feels dismissed.
A suspect interviewed but never fully explained.
A case review that leaves no public trail.
Evidence whose location becomes uncertain.
Records stored where water can reach them.
A murdered woman whose name appears less often each year.
The Lost File
Horry County records were reportedly damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
When The Sun News later requested records, the response reportedly included only a brief summary and two crime-scene photographs.
If witness interviews, suspect statements, diagrams, and evidence logs were destroyed, then the hurricane did more than damage paperwork.
It erased investigative memory.
The Family Felt Unheard
Linda believed information she tried to provide was not taken seriously.
What did she tell police?
Did she identify someone?
Did she describe an argument, threat, unwanted advance, or dangerous relationship?
Was that information written down?
If so, did it survive?
The Suspect Was Never Explained
A person was questioned.
No arrest followed.
The public does not know whether the person was cleared or whether the case simply lacked proof.
The 2001 Review Went Dark
Someone revisited the case around 2001.
Why?
Was DNA testing considered?
Was evidence found?
Was a suspect reexamined?
Did investigators discover that key material had been destroyed?
Nothing meaningful was publicly released.
The review sits inside the case like a sealed envelope.
The Evidence Question Remains Unanswered
The public does not know whether:
- fingernail scrapings survived
- Nancy’s clothing survived
- the bullet survived
- tire-track photographs survived
- SLED retains laboratory records
- modern DNA testing has been attempted
- investigative genetic genealogy has been considered
A cold case can survive lost paperwork if the evidence survives.
But first, someone has to say where the evidence is.
The Paper Trail Drowned, but Did the DNA?
This may be the most important question in the entire investigation.
Did the biological evidence survive Hurricane Hugo?
Case files and physical evidence are not always stored together.
Reports may have been in a courthouse or basement storage area.
Fingernail scrapings may have been transferred to a laboratory.
Clothing may have remained inside a property room.
Ballistic evidence may have been sent to SLED.
If investigators reviewed Nancy’s case around 2001, what exactly were they reviewing?
Did physical evidence still exist then?
Was it tested?
Was DNA developed?
Was it returned to Horry County?
Did SLED retain duplicate reports?
If the evidence survived, modern testing could change everything.
If it did not survive, Nancy’s family deserves a clear explanation of what happened to it.
The question should not remain buried behind agency silence:
Did the fingernail scrapings, clothing, ballistic evidence, and other biological material collected in Nancy Mazetis’s case survive Hurricane Hugo, and where are those items today?
When the Headlines Went Quiet
For one morning in June 1978, Nancy was front-page news.
The discovery of an unidentified young woman in a dragline ditch made the local newspaper.
Once she was identified, the public learned her name.
Then the coverage faded.
There was no sustained national campaign.
No nightly pressure on investigators.
No social media.
No podcasts.
No digital tip campaign.
No network special demanding an arrest.
The murder was reported.
But the media did not keep coming back.
During the 1990s, America’s Most Wanted reportedly expressed interest in the case. Nancy’s mother declined participation at the time.
That decision should not be judged.
Families should not be required to reopen their worst trauma for public consumption just to keep a case alive.
In 2018, reporter Alex Lang and The Sun News returned to Nancy’s story.
The coverage centered Nancy’s family and exposed the thin surviving record.
In 2026, Carolina Crimes devoted a full podcast episode to her murder.
Those revivals mattered.
But between them were decades of silence.
Perhaps the greatest media failure was not that Nancy received no coverage.
It was that the coverage did not stay.
The Voices Left Behind
Nancy’s family never stopped carrying her.
Linda believed Nancy knew her killer.
Donna remembered her sister’s extraordinary artistic and musical ability.
Their mother lived thirty-seven years without learning who murdered her daughter.
One of Linda’s most devastating reflections was simple:
“I know she’d still be my friend.”
That is the wound beneath every cold case.
Not only the life that ended.
The future relationship that never got to grow.
The phone calls that never happened.
The birthdays never celebrated.
The sisters who never got to become old women together.
Detective Jack Johnson later offered a warning to killers who believed time had protected them:
“We’re still coming after you.”
Those words matter.
But words must be matched by evidence audits, testing, transparency, and action.
Nancy’s family has carried the questions long enough.
It is time for the institutions holding the records to carry their weight.
Modern Paths Toward Justice
Nancy’s case may still be solvable.
Investigative Genetic Genealogy
If biological material remains beneath Nancy’s fingernails, a laboratory may be able to develop a DNA profile and identify relatives of the unknown contributor.
A family tree could lead investigators toward the killer.
Advanced DNA Recovery
Modern collection systems may recover trace or touch DNA from clothing, jewelry, paper currency, or preserved personal items.
Ballistic Reexamination
If the bullet survives, modern comparison may reveal caliber, rifling characteristics, or links to another weapon.
A Complete Evidence Audit
Horry County, SLED, the coroner, and the solicitor’s office should coordinate a full search for:
- fingernail scrapings
- clothing
- ballistic evidence
- fingerprints
- autopsy materials
- laboratory reports
- chain-of-custody records
- crime-scene photographs
- records created during the 2001 review
Witness Reinterviews
Time weakens loyalty.
Former partners may speak.
Estranged children may recall family secrets.
Old coworkers may finally identify the person who frightened Nancy.
A witness who feared someone in 1978 may no longer have anything to lose.
The Questions That Still Demand Answers
- Do Nancy’s fingernail scrapings still exist?
- Did they survive Hurricane Hugo?
- Has a DNA profile ever been developed?
- Has investigative genetic genealogy been attempted?
- Was the bullet recovered?
- What caliber weapon was used?
- Does the bullet remain in evidence?
- Were the barefoot impressions Nancy’s?
- What type of vehicle left the tire tracks?
- Was Nancy killed at the ditch or somewhere else?
- Was sexual-assault testing performed?
- What personal belongings were missing?
- Who was the suspect questioned in the 1970s?
- Why did police focus on that person?
- Was the person cleared or simply never charged?
- Who was the escaped convict?
- What did Linda tell investigators?
- Why did she believe they dismissed it?
- Who initiated the 2001 review?
- What evidence existed in 2001?
- Was anything tested?
- Did SLED receive evidence in 1978?
- Do duplicate SLED laboratory records survive?
- When was Nancy last seen alive?
- Who last spoke with her?
- Did she work her final shift at the Sea Mist?
- Was she seen at My Brother’s Tavern?
- Did she leave with someone?
- Where was she staying during her final nights?
- Was she planning to return to Massachusetts?
- Did anyone leave Myrtle Beach after the murder?
- Who had access to the dragline site?
- Which contractors worked there?
- Were construction employees interviewed?
- Did the 2018 review produce new leads?
- Did the 2026 podcast produce new tips?
- Who currently has responsibility for the case?
- Has the case been formally scored for solvability?
- Has every surviving piece of evidence been located?
- Why is Nancy’s killer still free?
Do You Know Something?
Anyone with credible information about the June 1978 murder of Nancy “Bambi” Mazetis should contact the Horry County Police Department Crime Tips line at 843-915-8477 or email:
hcpdcriminalinvestigations@horrycountysc.gov
For police reports or public-record questions, contact the Horry County Police Records Division at:
843-915-8344
Do not post names, accusations, addresses, or unverified allegations publicly.
Send potentially identifying information directly to law enforcement.
Someone knows something.
After nearly fifty years, silence is not protection.
It is evidence being withheld.
Contact, Questions, Records, and Concerns
Different questions belong with different offices. A crime tip should not be sent to the records department, and a public-records request should not be buried inside a general police inbox.
Use the contacts below to make sure information reaches the right place.
To Report Information About Nancy’s Murder
Horry County Police Department Crime Tips
Phone: 843-915-8477
Email: hcpdcriminalinvestigations@horrycountysc.gov
Use this contact for information concerning Nancy’s final movements, relationships, vehicles, the dragline site, statements made by anyone connected to the case, or any other potentially relevant lead.
For emergencies or immediate danger, call 911.
For Non-Emergency Police Assistance
Horry County Non-Emergency Dispatch
Phone: 843-248-1520
This line can route callers to the appropriate officer, investigator, or supervisor.
For Police Reports and Records Questions
Horry County Police Records Division
Phone: 843-915-8344
Email: hcpdrecords@horrycountysc.gov
Use this contact for questions about report availability, incident records, and police-record procedures.
To Submit a Freedom of Information Act Request
Horry County Public Information Office
Phone: 843-915-5390
Email: FOIA@horrycountysc.gov
When requesting records, include the following identifying information:
Nancy Mazetis, also occasionally spelled Mazestis, homicide discovered June 26, 1978, near U.S. Highway 501 and the Intracoastal Waterway in Horry County, South Carolina.
For Questions About Physical Evidence
Horry County Police Property and Evidence
Phone: 843-915-8343
Email: evidence@horrycountysc.gov
This office may be able to direct questions concerning the custody of physical evidence, although information may be restricted because Nancy’s murder remains unsolved.
For Victim and Family Support Questions
Horry County Police Victim Services
Phone: 843-915-8348
Email: hcpdadvocates@horrycountysc.gov
To Report Concerns About Police Handling
Horry County Police Professional Standards
Business hours: 843-915-5350
After hours: 843-248-1520 and ask to speak with a supervisor.
Concerns should be specific, factual, and supported by documentation whenever possible.
Contact The Sassy Gazette
Questions, corrections, source material, historical photographs, or comments concerning this article may be submitted to The Sassy Gazette.
Please note: The Sassy Gazette is not a law-enforcement agency and cannot guarantee confidentiality. Credible case information should be sent directly to Horry County Police.
Do not send public accusations, private addresses, unverified names, or identifying details about individuals who have not been publicly named by law enforcement.
People first. Facts first. Accountability always.
Final Case Note
The public evidence does not establish who murdered Nancy Mazetis.
But it makes some scenarios more persuasive than others.
Nancy’s reported fear of hitchhiking makes a voluntary ride with a stranger less likely.
The isolated construction site suggests local knowledge, vehicle access, or both.
The severe beating points toward rage.
The money and ring left behind weaken robbery.
The unidentified suspect questioned during the original investigation remains the most significant known lead.
The killer may not have been a famous predator passing through South Carolina.
They may have been familiar.
A coworker.
A customer.
A construction worker.
A pool player.
A person who had driven Nancy home before.
Someone close enough to gain her trust.
Someone angry enough to beat her.
Someone desperate enough to shoot her in the neck.
Someone who knew where the darkness began beyond the Myrtle Beach lights.
The case is damaged.
It is not necessarily dead.
If the fingernail material survives, Nancy may still be holding her killer’s identity.
If the bullet survives, it may still carry the history of the weapon.
If witnesses survive, their memories may still contain the final hours.
And if someone has spent nearly fifty years protecting the truth, they should understand this:
Time does not make murder less monstrous.
Silence does not become innocence simply because it grows old.
Nancy Mazetis deserves more than a paragraph in a damaged file.
She deserves the evidence tested.
She deserves every surviving witness questioned again.
She deserves every agency holding a piece of this case to open the drawer, lift the lid, and account for what remains.
Most of all, she deserves justice.
The Richie Standard
People first. Facts first. Accountability always.
We don’t chase headlines. We chase the truth.
And if that truth leads to institutional rot, then that’s where the light belongs.
For the voiceless.
For the families.
For the truth.
Sources and Further Reading
- The Sun News, reporting by Alex Lang on the Nancy Mazetis cold case
- Carolina Crimes, Episode 269: “Gone Without Answers: The Unsolved Murder of Nancy Mazetis”
- Angela Mazetis obituary and family records
- Horry County Police Department public-information and records resources
- South Carolina Law Enforcement Division public-information resources
- Contemporary June 1978 newspaper coverage from Myrtle Beach
Thanks for dicking around with Richie. Keep being a voice for the voiceless.
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