Joey Dean Coleman and Alex Murdaugh
Law enforcement authorities in South Carolina say they’ve identified the man who called in a bomb threat that disrupted the high-profile double-murder trial of Alex Murdaugh two weeks. The threat was called in by Joey Dean Coleman, a 32-year-old man incarcerated in a different county with no apparent link to Murdaugh or the murder trial, the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office alleged.
According to a press release, a clerk at the sheriff’s office at approximately noon on Wednesday, Feb. 8 received a call from an anonymous phone number. The unidentified male caller told the clerk that there was a “bomb in the judge’s chamber,” the release states. In response to the threat, the clerk immediately notified the court’s security office and the courthouse was promptly evacuated.
Agents with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and Detectives with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) responded to the scene and immediately began working on identifying the caller. The SLED Bomb Squad assisted with a search of the facility, but authorities said that “no threats or devices were located.”
Courthouse officials began allowing people back into the courthouse just before 2:30 p.m. and the presiding judge quickly got the trial back on track after everyone was seated.
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“SLED Agents and Colleton County Detectives traced the target phone to the Ridgeland Correctional Institute in Jasper County,” the sheriff’s office said. “South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) personnel were notified and reacted swiftly to locate a cellular device in the possession of Inmate Joey Dean Coleman. An initial forensic examination of the phone confirmed the components were a match to the device used to call in the bomb threat to the courthouse.”
Authorities emphasized that they found “no direct connection” between “Joey Coleman and Alex Murdaugh or the Murdaugh trial.”
Detectives with the sheriff’s office said that have obtained a felony arrest warrant for Coleman in connection with the bomb threat, but they did not specify what charges may be filed against him by prosecutors.
According to records from the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Coleman in 2018 was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery, first-degree assault and battery, and a weapons violation. He is expected to be released from detention in October 2045.
Coleman had been housed at the Ridgeland facility since since Jan. 24, 2023, but was transferred to the Broad River Correctional Institute—a higher security facility—on the same day as the Murdaugh trial bomb threat, records show. His earned work credits further show that Coleman had been assigned to work as a wardkeeper at Ridgeland from Feb. 7 until Feb. 8.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a message from Law&Crime regarding whether Coleman’s transfer to Broad River was connected to his alleged role in the bomb threat.
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