Charges filed in South Carolina drive-by shooting that killed 13-year-old over two years ago
Caleb Garcia has been charged with murder and Amber Moree has been charged with accessory to murder and obstruction of justice, according to the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office. (Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office)
(CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, S.C.) — Two people have been charged in a drive-by shooting that killed a South Carolina 13-year-old over two years ago.
Caleb Garcia, 23, has been charged with murder, seven counts of assault and battery, possession of a weapon while committing a violent crime and breach of peace, according to the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office.
Garcia is currently incarcerated in North Carolina, where he’s serving a sentence for an attempted murder conviction in connection with a shooting that occurred seven days after the shooting that killed Jacob Duncan, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Arrangements will be made for Garcia to answer these charges in Chesterfield County at the appropriate time,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
Amber Moree, 21, was arrested on Tuesday and has been charged with accessory after the fact of murder, obstruction of justice and misprision, according to the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office.
On Jan. 26, 2024, deputies responded to the scene to find Duncan suffering a gunshot wound. He later died of his injuries, the sheriff’s office told ABC News.
The boy was not the target of the shooting and was hit by a stray bullet while he was in the barn on the property where he lived, according to the sheriff’s office. The shooter was targeting another individual at the location when the boy was shot, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators anticipate additional charges being filed, according to the sheriff’s office.
“For two years and five months, Jacob’s family has waited for answers while our investigators worked tirelessly to uncover the truth. This case has weighed heavily on our community and, most importantly, on Jacob’s loved ones,” Sheriff Cambo Streater said in a statement Tuesday.
“While today’s announcement will never bring Jacob back, we hope it provides his family with some measure of comfort knowing that those believed to be responsible are being held accountable,” he said.
Streater said he was proud of the dedication and persistence shown by investigators.
“This case serves as a reminder that time does not diminish our commitment to seeking justice. No matter how long an investigation takes, we will continue pursuing the truth and holding those responsible accountable,” Streater said.
An attorney for Garcia did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment. Attorney information for Moree was not immediately available.
Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates stops to speak to the media as he arrives to testify at a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill on June 10, 2026, in Washington, DC. The committee is continuing to hold closed-door interviews as part of their investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tried to end his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender attempted to use compromising information about Gates’ extramarital affairs to force his way back into Gates’ life — but never explicitly threatened him, Gates told the House Oversight Committee earlier this month, according to a transcript of the closed-door session released Tuesday.
Gates appeared before the panel on June 10 as part of its ongoing probe into the government’s handling of its investigations into Epstein.
Gates, according to the transcript, said Epstein used an adviser to send him “veiled” threats, appeared to coach Gates’ adviser on how to potentially blackmail him, and mixed fact and fiction to leverage compromising information against the software billionaire.
“I was not blackmailed, but, you know, as you look at these emails, you know, it looks like Mr. Epstein’s brainstorming was going in that direction,” Gates said about materials from the Epstein files released earlier this year by the Department of Justice. “It appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me.”
During the interview, Gates acknowledged having at least three extramarital affairs, though he said that Epstein was involved with none of the women and that Epstein only learned about them after he and Epstein had cut ties.
The testimony offers a rare window into how Epstein allegedly tried to use compromising information to manipulate at least one powerful public figure. The Department of Justice said last year it found no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals.
Gates told lawmakers that his interactions with Epstein were limited to business, that he never witnessed Epstein commit a crime, and that he did not suspect that the women who were traveling with the disgraced financier were victims of sex trafficking. Asked about photos showing him with some of Epstein’s victims, Gates said Epstein occasionally asked to take photographs of Gates with women who Gates said he believed were Epstein’s assistants.
“I have never victimized anyone. While he may have sought to foster a personal relationship, I was never interested in that and never reciprocated,” Gates told lawmakers.
Gates told the Oversight panel that he first began to meet with Epstein in 2011 because he thought the financier’s purported connections with the wealthy could help advance the Gates Foundation’s global health work. When they first began to meet, Gates said he was aware of Epstein’s “bad reputation stemming from his criminal conviction,” but continued to see Epstein.
“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I knew, dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”
Gates said he only became aware of the full extent of Epstein’s crimes in 2018 after the Miami Herald’s in-depth reporting on Epstein’s lenient deal with federal prosecutors.
Gates said he thought the other high-profile individuals with whom Epstein socialized helped create an “image of legitimacy,” acknowledging that his own relationship with Epstein likely bolstered that image.
“I was so focused on the possibility of raising funds for global health that I allowed that goal to override my better judgment,” Gates said. “If the time I spent with Epstein lent him credibility, I am deeply sorry. I’ve learned a significant lesson and am now far more careful about who I engage with, even in a limited capacity.”
Describing Epstein as a “dilettante” with a surface-level knowledge of science and academics, Gates said that Epstein suggested he “provided advice to lots of billionaires” who might be able to advance philanthropic causes.
“He talked about Wall Street billionaires, he talked about Middle East billionaires. He made it sound very extensive … maybe for me to have a good impression of him,” Gates said.
While Gates insisted that his meetings with Epstein “weren’t social,” he recounted that some of those dinners involved “wide ranging discussion” with academics and bankers, including one dinner that included entertainment from magician David Blaine. Gates also said that Epstein repeatedly invited him to his private island, as well as an erotic show in Paris — invites that Gates said he refused.
According to Gates, his science adviser claimed they could likely go backstage to meet some of the performers that Epstein had dated, but Gates said he did not want to be spotted at an erotic show with Epstein.
“It wasn’t consistent with the relationship I had with Epstein,” Gates said. “I guess not only is my appearing at an erotic event a risk to my reputation, it would be compounded by appearing with somebody who, although I didn’t know the full extent of it, had been convicted of a sexually related crime.”
After occasionally meeting with Epstein for about three years, Gates said he began to express concerns that Epstein was “stringing” him along with his claims that he could deliver “meaningful philanthropic support.” According to Gates, Epstein set up a series of meetings in 2014 with high-profile individuals including hotel billionaire Thomas Pritzker, media billionaire Mort Zuckerman, and private equity investor Leon Black to demonstrate his connections to purportedly help Gates’ philanthropy work, though Gates said the meetings were a “dead end.”
“At that point, I concluded Epstein would never deliver on his promises. I told him we would go no further and stopped communicating or meeting with him,” Gates told the panel.
After Gates tried to cut ties with Epstein in 2014, he said the disgraced financier attempted to force his way back into his life, including by leveraging his knowledge of Gates’ extramarital affairs.
While Gates said he never disclosed the affairs to Epstein, he speculated that Epstein learned about the indiscretions through his relationship with Gates’ science adviser Boris Nikolic. Gates said that Nikolic was aware of the affairs because of their close relationship, including at least one instance when he used meeting with Nikolic as an alibi to rendezvous with one of the women.
“One time it was a scheduling thing, when we were in London, where I said to him I was going to disappear and wanted him to show that I was meeting with him at that time,” Gates said.
When Nikolic began the process of leaving the Gates Foundation, he engaged Epstein to help him negotiate the terms of his departure, Gates said. Epstein traveled to Seattle at one point to assist in Nikolic’s negotiation, Gates said, and Nikolic eventually began to make “veiled” threats via email.
“It’s hard to characterize the Epstein stuff because there was never a direct threat of any kind. There was always this veiled language like ‘we should remain friends,’ you know, which made me wonder what Dr. Nikolic had shared with him,” Gates said.
Asked about two draft emails released by the Department of Justice seemingly written by Epstein on behalf of Nikolic, Gates said the notes — which vaguely referenced the affairs and suggested that Gates has contracted a sexually transmitted disease — appeared to be part of a plot to attempt to “blackmail” him.
While Gates acknowledged at least three affairs, he explicitly denied contracting a sexually transmitted disease from the affairs, suggesting Epstein mixed falsehoods with known compromising information to use as leverage.
“If those emails that contained some truth and some false things were ever sent, then we could say there was an attempt at blackmail that never happened,” Gates said.
After he severed his relationship with Epstein, Gates claimed that the disgraced financier attempted to force his way back into his orbit, including by seeking reimbursement for money he claimed to have paid a woman with whom Gates had an affair. He told lawmakers that Epstein had nothing to do with the relationship and said he was unaware of any money that Epstein may have paid the woman, telling lawmakers that he believed the requests for payment were a “tactic [for Epstein] to reengage” him.
“I’d never asked him to do anything with respect to the person we’re discussing, so I was rather surprised. That was the first time I knew explicitly that he’d become aware of that affair,” Gates told lawmakers.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
This photo released by the Los Angeles Fire Department, shows the Boylan Heights storage facility fire in Los Angeles, on June 21, 2026. (Los Angeles Fire Department)
(LOS ANGELES) — Firefighters continue to battle a massive blaze at a Los Angeles warehouse that has been burning for nearly a week, which has spread heavy smoke for miles.
As of Tuesday morning, the fire at the Boyle Heights Storage Facility, which stores frozen food, is still ongoing, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Due to the facility’s architecture and cold storage shelving, crews have to battle the blaze from the outside as they cannot ventilate the insulated roof, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore told reporters Monday.
“The entire roof has been compromised, and it is sitting on top of those 65-foot towers,” he said. “Imagine going to Costco, or any other large convenience store, [like] Home Depot, any of those that have the large racks. Imagine the ceiling sitting down on top of those racks. It’s extremely dangerous, and I don’t foresee ever putting our firefighters in that type of danger.”
The fire at the facility, which Moore said contains about 85 million pounds of frozen food, began June 17, and a shelter-in-place order was temporarily in place.
Lineage Logistics, which operates the warehouse, said in a statement Monday that the fire began “while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array located on the facility’s roof.”
Lineage said that no hazardous materials are stored in the facility and that it pumped out the ammonia inside and transported it.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Saturday, and additional resources were sent to assist, including specialized aircraft with high-capacity water cannons.
While the fire has not spread to other buildings, residents and businesses near the area have been feeling the effects from miles away.
Heavy smoke from the blaze raised the Air Quality Index to unhealthy levels in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and the San Gabriel Valley since last Wednesday, officials said.
In Boyle Heights, the air quality was at “very unhealthy” levels Sunday evening with an AQI of 298, prompting warnings for people to stay indoors, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
AQI values at or below 100 are generally thought of as satisfactory, according to federal air regulators.
By Monday morning, many of the affected neighborhoods saw lower levels, with Boyle Heights recording an AQI of 79, but they were still high enough to affect some residents with respiratory issues, according to officials.
Although a shelter-in-place order was not issued, LA Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials offered over 1,000 air purifiers and face masks to residents who needed them.
Lines for those purifiers stretched outside locations on Monday.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Particle Pollution Advisory remained until Tuesday afternoon.
-ABC News’ Jenna Harrison and Matthew Claiborne contributed to this report.
Indonesian military and rescue personnel search through debris at a damaged building following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on August 15, 2026. (Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas/Handout))
(NEW YORK) — A magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit Indonesia just hours after a more powerful magnitude 7.7 quake struck off the coast of the eastern part of the country, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
At least 47 people have been killed, according to the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), with the earthquakes knocking down some buildings and leading hundreds to evacuate amid fears of a tsunami, officials said.
At least six others were injured and two more are missing, according to the Associated Press.
More than 300 houses were destroyed or damaged, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency.
More than 100 public facilities have also been destroyed or damaged, including 87 educational facilities, 18 health facilities, six offices and five places of worship.
Emergency crews, including members of the Indonesian National Armed Forces, were conducting evacuations and assessing damage.
The agency said the earthquake, which struck shortly before 5 a.m. local time, was strongly felt across the province of East Nusa Tenggara.
The quake initially triggered fears of a tsunami, and a warning from Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, issuing alerts to stay away from beaches and calls for people to evacuate. However, those warnings later expired, according to the Associated Press.
Before then, about 2,000 residents in the Nagekeo Regency on the Flores island “carried out self-evacuation as a precautionary measure after the earthquake and due to the early warning of a tsunami,” the disaster management agency said.
The earthquake’s epicenter was located about 60 kilometers north-northwest of Ende in Indonesia’s Flores region at a depth of about 10 kilometers, according to USGS.
There were a number of strong aftershocks reported nearby, including a 6.1 quake and a 5.9 quake also north of Ende, according to the USGS.
