By TARA JENNINGSLedger Staff Writer

Two cases involving murders that occurred a week apart in April appeared on a Cherokee County Magistrate Court docket for preliminary hearings Thursday.

The magistrate court judge determined there was enough probable cause in a case involving 22-year-old Clevon Phillips of Gaffney, to forward the case to a grand jury.

A preliminary hearing was also scheduled for 40-year-old Mark Vasco Pearson of Gaffney, who is accused of killing Murphy USA manager Pam Ownby, 43, of 1460 Wilkinsville Hwy., Gaffney.

Pearson waived his right to the hearing minutes before it was scheduled to begin.

Police said Pearson admitted to killing Ownby, his live-in girlfriend, after turning himself in to authorities in Georgia, where he had previously lived. Ownby was found by a coworker at 6 a.m. April 12 shot and stabbed multiple times inside a bathroom at the gas station where she worked.

Phillips is accused of shooting Tamerio Bashan Littlejohn, 20, of 202 Jolly Drive, Gaffney, at 9:10 p.m. April 5, in the 500 block of West Robinson Street.

Littlejohn was shot once in the abdomen. He was found lying on the side of the road and was pronounced dead at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center an hour later. Authorities said Littlejohn died of internal bleeding.

Gaffney Police Department Lt. Detective David Clary testified that witnesses told him Littlejohn arrived at a cookout and met Phillips in the road. According to a statement from one witness, the two were pushing each other around “like they were fighting” when she heard a single gunshot. Phillips began walking from the scene and then ran away after the witness told her sister to call police. Other witnesses to the shooting rushed to Littlejohn’s side, pleading with him to keep breathing while waiting for paramedics to arrive.

Two witnesses identified Phillips as the shooter from a photo lineup, Clary said.

Phillips was taken into custody at the Gaffney Inn after a two-day search. A federal Fugitive Task Force consisting of officers from the U.S. Marshal’s Office and the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office aided in the apprehension.