Two men convicted in the unrelated slayings of four people in Horry County more than two decades ago have been denied parole by a state parole board, according to authorities.
Franklin Loftis, 67, of Charleston, W.Va., was rejected last week in his eighth attempt at parole, according to officials. Loftis was convicted May 4, 1984, of two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Harry Koch, 50, and his 16-year-old stepson, Carl Derk.
Brian A. Hoffman, 46, is serving a life sentence in prison after he was convicted of two counts of murder, first-degree burglary, first-degree criminal sexual conduct and grand larceny with a value of more than $200 in the Nov. 8, 1990, stabbing deaths of Arlene and George Thompkins at their Murrells Inlet home.
Loftis was sentenced to two life sentences in addition to a five-year sentence for criminal conspiracy.
Koch, the owner of the defunct Magic Harbor Amusement Park just south of Myrtle Beach, and his stepson were shot to death outside their trailer at the park shortly after it closed on Labor Day 1976. Koch's wife, Carol, narrowly escaped by hiding under the trailer.
During his trial, prosecutors said Loftis, a former carpenter at the amusement park, was mad at Koch and his family when he was injured on the job and experienced a delay in getting workers' compensation.
Before Loftis' arrest in 1982, the case was considered Horry County's oldest unsolved crime.
Hoffman, who was from Norwich, Conn., was a 26-year-old carpenter living in Surfside Beach when he was arrested after the Thompkins' deaths.
The bodies of George Thompkins, 70, and his wife Arlene Thompkins, 58, were found inside their Murrells Inlet home by a health worker who went to check on them.
George Thompkins, a retired cab driver who was bedridden with muscular dystrophy, could have lived as long as 30 minutes after he was stabbed in the heart, according to trial testimony. Police learned that the couple had been robbed and their vehicle was stolen.
Three days after the murders, police searched for Hoffman between Conway and Aynor.
Officers stopped a vehicle he was in and he ran into woods.
"I've been thinking about what happened to me," Hoffman told the jury in a quivering voice during his trial in 1991.
"I wish I could remember everything that happened that night. I don't know what to say to you or the Thompkins family except that I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."
Prosecutors called Hoffman a perverted, sadistic murderer.
Defense attorneys said Hoffman's turbulent and troubled childhood helped lead to alcohol abuse and a personality disorder, which might have contributed to the murders.
Hoffman started drinking alcohol at age 10 and began smoking marijuana at age 11.
Hoffman also is serving additional sentences after he was convicted of attempted escape from prison in Dorchester County and possession of contraband by a prisoner in Greenville, according to jail records.
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