In July 2017, an Upstate South Carolina mother snapped, when she killed 28-year-old Meredith Rahme at a parking garage, near an apartment complex in downtown Greenville, around 5:00 p.m. Jessica Edens was the suspected shooter of Rahme, who was found in her vehicle deceased, where Edens’ estranged husband lived at the time. A few reports suggested that both Rahme and the husband lived at the complex.
No one, at the time, knew how far Edens would go. The news that afternoon plastered the tragic event across the airwaves and local television. The woman, who was found dead from a gunshot wound, was reportedly in a relationship or had a relationship with the husband of some magnitude, per multiple news reports.
Jessica and her husband were involved in a custody dispute over one of the children at the time, but what occurred next would forever shock many and leave many brokenhearted.
During the ordeal between Jessica Edens and her husband, Meredith Rahme had received text messages and phone calls from Jessica in the weeks leading up to the shooting.
According to the Greenville News, “Two days before the shootings, Ben and Jessica Edens appeared in Greenville Family Court for a temporary child custody hearing in which Ben Edens was granted standard visitation rights, police said.”
Again, I will point to this case, much like the Susan Smith case, of why the South Carolina Family Court System continues to push fathers out of children’s lives. Perhaps, if they had done what they should have with equal custody, the outcome of this tragedy and others might have been prevented. In my opinion, they are just as much to blame as Jessica Edens.
According to the Greenville News, text messages were released after the shooting, which showed that Jessica Edens blamed her husband for the tragedy.
“This is the hardest thing for me to do,” Jessica Edens wrote in a text to Ben Edens the morning of July 13. “But you have destroyed me. You continue to destroy me. You will not be able to hurt me or my kids anymore.”
“It won’t matter after today,” she added. “No more pain after today.”
Reportedly, after killing Rahme, Edens placed her final call to her husband, which stated, “Everyone you love is gone. Do you hear me? I’m about to be gone too.”
Her husband had tried to call her back, but the call went to voicemail.
After leaving the parking garage in Greenville, Jessica Edens drove 7 miles to the Greenville-Pickens Speedway, near Easley, where the bodies of Edens and her two children were later discovered.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.