Family probes disappearance of 25-year-old Dillon County man

LITTLE ROCK — It’s been almost three months since a 25-year-old Dillon County man disappeared in Sumter County and his family members say they are no closer to finding any answers about what became of him.

Brandon “Peanut” Graves was last seen Jan. 30 leaving a nightclub on U.S. 76 in Sumter County, family members said.

Graves graduated from Coastal Carolina University in December 2008 and worked in Myrtle Beach.

He traveled home each weekend to his mother’s house in Little Rock to be with their close-knit family, his cousin, Larry German, said.

But the weekend of his disappearance, Graves and a friend left Myrtle Beach and traveled to Sumter County where they participated in the Morris College homecoming with members of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Inc.

It was a night for celebrating because the fraternity won first place at homecoming’s step competition, said Shelawn Wright, another of Graves’ relatives.

The last images of Graves were taken by surveillance cameras at Club Sebastian which show him leaving the premises with another person.

A missed call from Graves’ cell phone was received by a cousin in the early morning hours of Jan. 31.

“It’s just not like Brandon,” said his aunt, Lorie Johnson. “I just trust in God, but it’s not easy. Brandon comes to my house every Saturday, but that day he wanted to be with his fraternity.”

No one sang or gave gifts March 12, Graves’ 25th birthday, because he wasn’t home with his family, said Lois Graves German, his aunt and adoptive mother.

“I missed baking his cake,” she said. “I bake everyone’s cake (in my family).”

“It’s hard. Oh God, yes. Every Thursday or Friday, he was home.”

Lois German raised Graves since he was 3 after the death of his mother, who is her sister.

And he is just like her own child, she said.

“He was Brandon. He never talked back, he never had a sassy word, he never opened his month when he was young,” she said.

Graves was the baby of the family, Lois German said. His family said he earned the nickname Peanut because he was small as a child.

Graves’ family members travel to Sumter every week to touch base with the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the case.

“(The deputies) aren’t doing nothing. Nothing,” Johnson said. “The don’t have any leads. They had one lead and they let it go. We don’t know why they aren’t trying to help us.”

Several calls seeking comment on the case from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office weren’t returned by press time Wednesday.

The family said they will travel to Sumter on Friday to look for clues that may lead them to Graves.

“I watch missing persons on TV but I never dreamed this would happen to me,” Larry German said.

Graves, a former CCU football student trainer, had just gotten a new job in Myrtle Beach two weeks before his disappearance, Larry German said.

“Peanut maybe had 30 cents in pocket,” he said. “So if they robbed him, they robbed him for nothing. If they killed him, they killed him for nothing.”

Family members said they aren’t sure what happened to Graves, but are still praying for answers.

“God’s going to do something. We can’t rush him,” Lois German said. “He’ll do something in his time.”

Anyone with information on Graves’ disappearance is asked call the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office at (803) 436-2700 or the state Crime Stoppers hotline at (888) CRIME SC (274-6372). Callers need not reveal their identities.