For more than two years, neighbors observed that Sheridan Fogle became unusually defensive whenever anyone approached the backyard fire pit at his property. He repeatedly warned people away, insisting that something lay buried beneath the dirt.
On June 12, 2024, investigators arrived at the property with shovels to determine what that something was. Beneath the fire pit, they discovered a wooden hope chest , crafted by hand decades earlier by Penni Whiteside’s grandfather as a cherished childhood keepsake.
Inside the chest was Whiteside herself, strangled to death.
On October 29, a jury deliberated for less than 60 minutes before convicting the 56-year-old Fogle of murder, sentencing him to spend the remainder of his life in prison, according to television station WMBF.
Whiteside, 51, had disappeared in January 2022 while residing with Fogle. Her brother formally reported her missing to the Myrtle Beach Police Department four months later, initiating an agonizing search for answers that extended across multiple seasons.
As officers canvassed the surrounding neighborhood, tips began pointing directly toward the backyard. Neighbors informed police that Fogle had behaved noticeably territorial around the fire pit, repeatedly asserting that something had been buried in the ground beneath it.
Those tips ultimately provided detectives with the probable cause required to obtain a search warrant. Upon excavating the earth that summer morning, forensic teams uncovered the handmade wooden chest.
Police arrested Fogle on August 29, 2024, characterizing the killing as a “senseless crime of violence.”
Court records revealed that the violence had not begun on the night Whiteside disappeared. In the year preceding her disappearance, officers had responded to the residence on multiple occasions for domestic disturbances. Law & Crime reported allegations that Fogle had struck Whiteside in the chest with sufficient force to knock her to the floor, and that in a separate incident, he had stolen her debit and credit cards.
Taking the witness stand in his own defense during trial, Fogle told jurors that Whiteside had approached him with a knife. However, during a pointed cross-examination, prosecutor Nancy Livesay methodically dismantled that defense, pressing Fogle on how he had moved forward following the killing , remarrying and establishing himself in a new community “while Penni was face-down in that box.”
The 12-person jury returned a guilty verdict in under an hour.
Outside the courtroom, Whiteside’s son, Hunter Smith, reflected on the profound absence his mother’s death had created in his life.
“It’s just been disbelief, trying to come to terms with it, because, you know, every little thing that happens in your life, you want to call your mom and tell her, and you can’t, so you just have to … just keep on keeping on,” Smith said.
Prosecutors emphasized that the life sentence represented the conclusion of a prolonged pattern of domestic abuse.
“Sheridan Fogle has a history of violent crimes towards women, including assault for strangling but not killing his first wife and domestic violence involving Penni,” Assistant Solicitor Jonathan Rogers stated in a release from the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office. “I am pleased that in the South Carolina Department of Corrections he will no longer have the opportunity to assault a woman. I hope this sentence can finally bring some closure to Penni’s family.”
For Whiteside’s loved ones, the legal conclusion brought an end to a chapter that had begun the moment she vanished. As her family wrote in her obituary: “After being missing for over two years, her family can begin to find peace.”
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