Some thoughts I shared on Reddit recently:
https://www.reddit.com/user/suwanne...ez/in_memory_of_reginald_leonard_reggie_ward/
On Friday February 18th, 2022, myself and the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office made the announcement that Reginald "Reggie" Ward's case was over. It had been solved nearly forty years after his body had been located in the Suwannee River.
As the story goes, a pair of canoers located Reggie's body as it was partially floating to the surface of the river. They docked their canoe, ran to the nearby Interstate 10, flagged a driver, who proceeded to the agricultural checkpoint to inform the officer of the grizzly discovery. The officer in turn reported the discovery to the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office. When they pulled him out of the river, he was badly decomposed and hogtied hand to feet. Two heavy sandbags were wrapped around his neck.
When a multijurisdictional dive team went into the river a day after taking Reggie's body out, they discovered items that appeared to be personal in nature, like sleeping materials and camping gear. Then they found the murder weapon: a .22 caliber Winchester rifle.
The rifle was checked, along with a pocket knife that was found with the items. The weapons were traced back to a report made on September 5th, 1983 in Dowling Park, where a home had been burglarized. A list of items were stolen, such as food, drinks, camping gear, and most importantly a rifle and pocketknife.
The items didn't paint this murdered victim in a good light. He appeared to be the thief that stole from someone's home. But regardless of the events that transpired on the 5th, this didn't necessarily make Reggie a bad guy. And it certainly didn't warrant the end he received: 9 bullets to his body; all matched the rounds from the rifle.
And this could have been Reggie's legacy: an unidentified male who was a thief who effectively died by the same weapon he stole. But he didn't shoot himself nine times, hogtied himself and threw himself in the river.
You saw that right...an unidentified male. That is what Reggie was until 2012.
If it had not been for William Clayton Sapp's guilty conscience, we wouldn't be in the position we are in today. He relayed a sketchy version of the story to FDLE Special Agent Robert Shotwell at the federal prison in Jesup, Georgia in 2010, which resulted in the homicide investigation being reopened by FDLE. He talked about his father, William Clyde Sapp (who will be referenced as Junior Sapp henceforth) murdering a black man on the Suwannee River with a .22 rifle. There are many pages within the FDLE report that details Agent Shotwell's investigation, who he spoke with, and ultimately how Reginald Ward was identified--by a partial fingerprint card that was run through the AFIS program.
After Reggie's identification, William Clayton Sapp told investigators that he didn't know Reggie, who killed him, or why he was killed. He changed his story. But even though FDLE closed their case after speaking with Sapp, they knew the story wasn't adding up.
Enter Wayne Kelly, the Sergeant of Investigations at the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office.
When I found that Suwannee County had an open case file involving a set of human remains in June 2021, I decided to dig into the Suwannee Democrat archives and look for this story. And I certainly did. Afterwards, I took notes and copies of the articles. Then I reported my findings to the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office. Sgt. Kelly was quick to return my messages.
He couldn't believe the story I was telling him, and he had to see this for himself. So he pulled the case file, which was a disorganized mess, and straightened it out. He was able to start from the beginning and work his way up to Reggie's identification in 2012. From there, he used the leads Agent Shotwell developed and picked up from there.
I am 110% aware of what happened next. This part of the story, I cannot say too much about because it involved someone close to William Clayton Sapp. It involved a number of things that went deeper than blood. But nonetheless, it was something that truly helped the investigation and the way it went.
Through the interview with the person shared that over the years, Sapp would talk about the night his father, Junior Sapp, shot the black man and threw him into the river. It was an act of sick, twisted vigilante justice that was mixed in with boiled hatred for blacks. Junior didn't take kind of a black person like Reggie walking into his bar, especially with stolen items. And it should be noted that Junior wasn't alone. I have thoughts about this, but I do not want to share them here, because it will only stoke the fire more. But based on the fact that William Clayton was able to share the story so vividly, it makes me wonder where he was around the night of September 5th, 1983.
The person who shared this story feared for their safety after sharing this. They were shaking. They knew the family would get upset. But its better to know what happened, instead of whitewashing the truth about what happened to Reggie Ward.
It's a shame that Junior Sapp couldn't be tried for this. He died in 1996, escaping the clutches of the law. But bad things came to him in multiple ways while in this life. One, his son Joseph Ronald Sapp would be viciously killed in Lake City in April 1983. He was shot in the head five times, his car stolen and later abandoned nearby. It is still an open case.
William Clayton would be in and out of prison on a number of drug charges. His health was also poor. By the time Sgt. Kelly wanted to speak to him, it was too late. His rough life finally caught up to him and it killed him.
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Reginald Ward was born in Quincy, Florida on March 31st, 1964 to the late Flora Gaymon and Clinton Ward, Sr. He lived most of his life in Gadsden County and would visit Tallahassee often. The young man did have his issues which led him into the care of multiple boys homes, including the infamous Dozier School for Boys.
He ran away from the home and went back to Quincy in an attempt to live a straight life. But the last time he was seen alive, his girlfriend had dropped him off at his grandmother's home in Quincy. He could not live with her at Fort Campbell because he was not a dependent.
When he set off east, Reggie likely believed that it would be the start of something new. He likely believed that somewhere along his travels, an adventure would begin.
But the plans most likely didn't involve being murdered.
This solve helps give hope to other cold cases in the region. And some that were lost to time. And it also brings back a painful past Suwannee Countians would want to forget. Not far from where Reggie's body was found, Willie James Howard would be lynched. The case, though closed on paper, certainly brings suspicions on what really happened. No one was ever brought to trial on his murder because of the racist justice system at the time.
But in today's world, the times are dramatically different. Old civil rights era cases are reopened and sometimes a suspect is found. Take for example Medgar Evers' murder. His murderer, Byron De La Beckwith, went through two hung juries and after the second one Beckwith believed he was done. Well, 1994 came, new evidence was presented, and so did new witnesses. In the end, Evers got justice and Beckwith lived the rest of his miserable life in prison.
But unfortunately, in Reggie's case, we will never see that. And most likely, we will never see that in the Howard case. But I do hope that justice comes some day for every case that remains open, the obvious signs pointing to a hate crime.
Rest in Peace, Reggie. Your family never forgot about you.
