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Fatal Fallout

Coping with crime

A fellow inmate stabbed one of my youngest brothers "in the back and the face,'' he told me as nonchalantly as if discussing the blueness of the sky.

It was during a fight in a Baltimore prison. Zadoc Bailey stabbed the other guy in the back. Neither reported the incident, so neither received treatment. They didn't want to be taken to solitary confinement.

A small scar is still visible on his face.

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WHAT HAPPENED
In 1982, columnist Issac Bailey's brother Herbert "Moochie" Bailey Jr. was charged in the stabbing death of James Bunch, a former Bonneau city councilman. Bailey recently spoke for the first time about the slaying with the victim's family, as well as his own, for a six-part series that explores the lingering effects of murder on the families of the victims and the accused.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Sunday | A family learns from TV news reports their oldest brother - protector of his siblings and his mother - has been arrested in the horrific slaying of a former councilman.

Monday | Given away in marriage at 13 to a man who beat her, Elizabeth (Bailey) McDaniel gives birth at 18 to a boy who would grow to retaliate against his father's rage.

Tuesday | Questions linger on both sides about the death of James Bunch and the conviction of Moochie Bailey. Those questions may never be answered because the official murder files have been destroyed.

Wednesday | The murder of James Bunch haunts his surviving siblings 25 years later. But it wasn't the only murder they've had to weather.

Thursday | More than two decades of visits have given the Baileys an intimate knowledge of the S.C. correctional system. They continue to hope someday to see Moochie paroled. The Bunch family has a different hope.

Friday | Twenty-five years after a murder that forever changed two families, some members of the Bailey family have achieved success; crime has defined the lives of a few.