Mikal Mahdi
Mikal Deen Mahdi was an American convicted spree killer who was executed for the murder of a police officer in South Carolina. Over a period of three days in July 2004, Mahdi, then a resident of Virginia, went on a multistate crime spree, committing carjacking, firearm robbery, and three murders, two of which he was tried for and found guilty.
Mahdi fled the state after murdering a man in Brunswick County, Virginia, following a drug deal gone wrong. Although Mahdi confessed to that crime, he was never tried because of his two later murder convictions. Mahdi then robbed and killed a 29-year-old convenience store clerk, Christopher Jason Boggs, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on July 15, 2004. Two days after the murder of Boggs, Mahdi carjacked a man and stole his car in Columbia, South Carolina, before fleeing to a local farm in Calhoun County, South Carolina, where he murdered 56-year-old off-duty police officer James Myers, whose body was doused in diesel fuel and burned by Mahdi.
Mahdi went on the run for about four days before he was arrested in Florida on July 21, 2004, and extradited back to South Carolina to be charged with the fatal shooting of Myers. Mahdi was convicted of the murder and other charges in South Carolina and sentenced to death in 2006. After his extradition to North Carolina for trial, Mahdi was sentenced to life without parole in 2011 for the murder of Boggs.
On April 11, 2025, Mahdi was executed by firing squad—the second in South Carolina and the fifth in the United States to undergo a firing squad execution since 1976.
Background and personal life
Mikal Deen Mahdi was born in Virginia on March 20, 1983, and he was raised in Lawrenceville, Virginia. According to court documents, Mahdi had a troubled and "chaotic" childhood. Prior to Mahdi's birth, Mahdi's father converted to Islam and changed his name to Shareef; he himself came from a dysfunctional family with a history of alcoholism. Shareef did not complete high school; instead, he joined the Marines, from which he had an honorable discharge. At age 27, Shareef had an arranged marriage with a 16-year-old girl from Richmond and had two sons, Mikal and his older brother Saleem. Mikal's mother left the family in 1986. Shareef did not pay much attention to his sons and had a history of altercations with law enforcement officers. Although Shareef tried to work odd jobs to take care of his family, he failed.In 1991, Shareef sent his sons to live with relatives. Saleem went to live with an aunt in Texas, and Mahdi went to live with his paternal uncle and aunt in Maryland when he was eight years old. He completed second and third grade at Scotts Branch Elementary School in Baltimore. Mahdi was an active student of sorts, but he faced disciplinary issues like respect for authority and teachers, and his reading and writing skills were below grade levels. School reports reveal that Mahdi had low self-esteem and often had difficulty with relationships with others. He dropped out in the third grade. By the age of 21, at the time of the 2004 crime spree, Mahdi had completed both a GED and community college.
Mahdi was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at age nine on August 23, 1992. He was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility due to a suicide threat and was discharged on October 19, 1992, from the Walter P Carter Center. Mahdi returned to live with his father and brother in Virginia, where he first committed breaking and entering in December 1997. Mahdi was convicted of two counts of grand larceny and two counts of breaking and entering. He served time in a juvenile facility, where he spent 75 days in solitary confinement from the age of 14 to 17 and another eight months of solitary confinement at age 21. After his release, Mahdi resided with his mother in Richmond.
In 2001, Mahdi was convicted of attacking a police officer in Virginia and sentenced to 93 months in prison. He also was given 15 years of probation and released in May 2004, but two months later, he committed a spree of murders across three different states.
2004 crime spree and murders
From July 14 to 17, 2004, Mahdi committed various crimes across three or four states, including two murders: one of a convenience store worker in North Carolina and another of a police officer in South Carolina.In 2025, it was revealed for the first time that Mahdi was allegedly involved in a 2004 murder case in his home state of Virginia, which occurred before the two killings in the Carolinas, bringing his total number of suspected murder victims to three. Mahdi's murder spree remained one of the most notorious death penalty cases in South Carolina.
Murder of Greg Jones
Sometime on or before July 14, 2004, Mahdi, then 21 years old, allegedly killed a man near his home in Virginia. Based on a media report and Virginia police sources, the victim Greg Jones was found dead about two miles away from Mahdi's residence. Allegedly, Mahdi stabbed and killed him after a drug deal between them had gone wrong, and Mahdi fled from Virginia after committing the crime. He was subsequently identified as the killer after the Virginia police recovered a knife from Mahdi's house. DNA tests confirmed that both Mahdi's DNA and Jones's blood were on the knife.Murder of Christopher Boggs
On July 14, 2004, after killing Jones, Mahdi stole a.380-caliber pistol from his neighbor, as well as a station wagon and a set of Virginia license plates. Mahdi drove the stolen car out of Virginia and headed to North Carolina. The next day, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Mahdi entered a convenience store and selected a can of beer. While the store clerk, 29-year-old Christopher Jason Boggs, was checking Mahdi's identification card, Mahdi fired the gun point-blank, fatally shooting Boggs in the face. As Boggs collapsed on the floor, Mahdi fired another shot at Boggs's body. After murdering Boggs, Mahdi attempted to open the cash register to steal money, but after failing to do so, Mahdi left the store with the beer and drove to South Carolina.Murder of James Myers
On July 17, 2004, two days after reaching South Carolina, Mahdi murdered 56-year-old off-duty policeman James Edward Myers.Prior to the murder itself, Mahdi had armed himself with a gun and carjacked a driver named Corey Pitts while in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. He stole Pitts's car and replaced the car's license plates with the stolen license plates from Virginia. He later headed southeast. After driving for 35 minutes, Mahdi reached a gas station and attempted to buy gas with a credit card, which the gas pump rejected. Mahdi fruitlessly spent 45 minutes to an hour to get the pump to work, but this led to suspicion by the gas station's workers, who called the police, and Mahdi was forced to flee on foot.
On the same day, Mahdi arrived in Calhoun County, South Carolina and went into hiding on a local farm, where he spent the day watching TV and examining the gun collection stored inside the farm's workshop. The farm belonged to 56-year-old Captain James Myers of the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety. Myers, who had served at least three decades as a firefighter and police officer, was then away from the farm, celebrating the birthday of his daughter, sister, and wife at a beach.
After the celebration, Myers went back to his farm, and Mahdi, who spotted Myers, grabbed Myers's.22-caliber rifle, holding Myers at gunpoint before fatally shooting him. Myers was struck nine times; three times in the head, five times in the chest, and once in the left hand. Mahdi then proceeded to pour diesel fuel on Myers's body before setting it on fire. Mahdi stole the.22-caliber rifle along with Myers's police-issued assault rifle and personal shotgun, and escaped from the farm in Myers's police-issued truck.
Later that evening, Myers's wife, Amy Tripp Myers, also a law enforcement officer, became worried when her husband did not return home. Amy drove to the farm, discovered Myers's burned body lying in a pool of blood at the workshop, and reported the matter to the police.
Janice Ross, MD, of Newberry Pathologists Associates conducted a postmortem examination on Myers's corpse, finding that Myers had sustained nine gunshot wounds, including three to his head. According to Dr. Ross's report, two of the shots traveled from the top of Myers's head down to the base of his skull, suggesting Myers was either down or slumping when the shots were fired and that because all of the head wounds reached his brain, the shooting led to immediate unconsciousness and caused Myers's death. One of the shots to Myers's chest had struck both his lung and his heart.
Manhunt and arrest
After the murder of James Myers, Mahdi stole the victim's truck and fled to Florida.Through their investigations, the police were able to link Mahdi to the murder of Myers and conducted a manhunt for Mahdi. The Federal Bureau of Investigation dispatched FBI agents to search for Mahdi. Similarly, the police in North Carolina issued a warrant of arrest for Mahdi after closed-circuit television showed him to be the killer who had robbed and shot Christopher Boggs. The Virginia authorities likewise issued an arrest warrant for Mahdi after linking him to the murder of Greg Jones, and Mahdi reportedly confessed to killing Jones.
On July 21, 2004, local police spotted Mahdi driving Myers's truck in Florida and cornered him in Satellite Beach. Although Mahdi abandoned the truck, fled on foot, and even carried Myers's stolen rifle with him, he eventually dropped the rifle and surrendered to police.
After the arrest of Mahdi, local authorities in Florida extradited Mahdi to South Carolina for investigation into the murder of Myers, with which he was charged in court. State prosecutors in South Carolina reportedly sought the death penalty in preliminary charge sheets filed against Mahdi, at the request of Myers's family, Orangeburg County authorities, and Calhoun County authorities.