James Edward Loftis, 39, was granted bail of $250,000 and is expected to go home this week. He will soon face trial for shooting and killing two men earlier this year. His attorney said Loftis panicked after killing the men, so he burned their bodies along with his blood-soaked clothing and buried them in the backyard.
Officials say Loftis fatally shot a taxi driver, 46-year-old Guma Oz Dubar and another man, 31-year-old James Cody Newland, on March 5 at his house in Goose Creek, S.C.
His attorney Stephen Harris, according to a video by The Post and Courier, claims his door “was kicked in.”
“Well in South Carolina, if you’re your home and someone breaks in to your home you have the right to protect your home and if deadly force is necessary thats what you can use, and in this case the door was kicked in, two strangers kicked in his door and he shot them,” Harris said during a May 9 press conference.
“The way he handled it after may have not been the best way,” according to Harris, who says Loftis planned to call 911, but “freaked out and got scared.”
