Column: Porky Bradberry’s life had many ups and downs

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Such was the case this past week when Swint “Porky” Bradberry Jr. was killed in an apparent robbery attempt.

Many generations of Aikenites knew Bradberry for his involvement with the family’s jewelry store, which he later owned and operated.

Many also knew that his wife, Linda, was found dead in her car with a shotgun blast to her head. She owned a beauty salon which had a break-in the day before her body was discovered. Nothing was reported missing.

Her death occurred in December 1982, and police said at the time robbery wasn’t a motive and that they couldn’t establish a motive.

A few years later, in 1988, authorities changed their tune and arrested three men in a murder-for-hire plot. Bradberry was arrested a week later and charged with the murder of his wife.

But the charges didn’t stick — the account from a single witness didn’t hold up — and charges were dropped against Bradberry and the three men a few months later.

“I have maintained from the very beginning that I am innocent,” Bradberry told the Aiken Standard in 1988. “I do not kill pretty little girls that love me. I wish the gossipers and liars would leave me and my family alone.”

Of course, the whispers never really stopped. Linda Bradberry’s death remains unsolved.

I always had pleasant interactions with the Bradberry family. I shopped for my wife’s engagement ring at their store, and I had the batteries in my watch replaced there many times. When our Kiwanis Club had car shows a few years back, I remember Porky bringing an old panel truck and dressing up in a delivery driver outfit.

In covering the news that broke Tuesday morning, speculation was rampant that it was Porky Bradberry who was the victim of a heinous crime. I made sure to give our crime reporter, Bianca Moorman, some context on Bradberry.

When the coroner confirmed it was Bradberry — we wait for official word, unlike some on social media — I asked our reporter to contact some folks who knew Bradberry. They had very kind words to say about him, and some noted that he had become a Christian.

Bradberry also had a knack for making headlines.

A would-be robber — a man wearing a flowered dress as a disguise — exchanged gunfire with Bradberry in 2011. The jewelry store owner was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, and the suspect survived his wounds and was later convicted and sent to prison.

Tragedy also seemed to follow Bradberry.

His son, Keith, was killed in a vehicle crash in 2013. Another wife, Connie, died after an extended illness. Bradberry’s own health had deteriorated in recent years, forcing him to give up the business he loved.

In 2020, Bradberry sold the Mitchell Shopping Center store to Jamie Whittle. The new owner didn’t change the name because Bradberry was a household name in Aiken.

“Every customer that comes in the store, the first thing they do is ask, ‘Where’s Porky? How’s Porky?’ Everybody wants to talk about Porky when they come in. He’s a personal friend to most of these people,” Whittle said at the time.

The house where Bradberry was killed was where his parents, Swint and Elizabeth, once lived. Police arrested Alexander Gage Boone, 27, and charged him with murder and first-degree burglary.

According to arrest warrants, the suspect broke into the house and struck Bradberry in the head multiple times with an unidentified object. He left the crime scene with Bradberry’s orthotic shoes and his Member’s Only jacket that still had a dry cleaning receipt attached.

It was a sad ending to a life that had many ups and downs.

Thanks for reading.