PELION — Prodded by its longtime mayor, this tiny town spent thousands of dollars to hire a private consultant to investigate its police chief in a probe that critics said also was an attempt to intimidate the mayor’s rivals.

Mayor Frank Shumpert denied that the town hired the investigator for political reasons, with his attorney describing the criticism as a smear campaign.

But the investigation and its aftermath prompted three officials to leave the government, triggered at least one state ethics inquiry and prompted the private investigator to urge officials to put aside their squabbles.

Pelion’s turmoil raises wider questions about accountability and how municipalities police themselves, especially in small towns where a single family holds sway, an Uncovered investigation by The Post and Courier and The Lexington County Chronicle found.

Pelion isn’t the only South Carolina town hit by recent allegations of questionable internal scrutiny.

In December, the State Law Enforcement Division charged the town administrator of Great Falls in Chester County with using tracking devices to monitor the mayor and a council member who voted to fire him. Infighting in the crossroads town of McBee in Chesterfield County devolved into lawsuits, investigations — and what a local newspaper eventually called “a blood feud.”

In Pelion’s case, Shumpert asked SLED to investigate possible misconduct involving the Pelion Police Department, a SLED spokesperson confirmed. The agency closed the case, deeming it unfounded.

Meanwhile, John Elkin, a former police officer who ran unsuccessfully against the mayor, filed complaints with the S.C. Ethics Commission about the town’s investigation, among other allegations.

Records provided by Shumpert show the commission dinged him for failing to properly disclose outside income sources on ethics forms, as required under state law to create more government transparency and avoid conflicts of interest. But Shumpert immediately amended the forms, records show. The commission dropped the matter, finding insufficient evidence for Elkin’s other allegations.

One thing is clear: Pelion’s politics have grown more toxic during and after the investigation.

Peanuts and Shumperts

Pelion, a town of about 1,000 people that is pronounced Peal-yeun, is a roughly 30-minute drive southwest of Columbia. It’s known today largely for peanuts and Shumperts.

The town’s welcome sign reads, “Home of the SC Peanut Party,” an annual November celebration of peanut farming that includes a peanut boiling ceremony and a peanut-themed parade.

After the welcome sign, other placards bear the Shumpert family name, including “Shumpert’s IGA,” Pelion’s only grocery store and among the oldest family-owned businesses in Lexington County. In 2017, state lawmakers formally recognized Shumpert’s IGA for “125 years of serving the Pelion community” and noted how the “Shumperts throughout the generations have held political offices in Pelion and Lexington County.”

Today, Frank Shumpert is in his third term as mayor and is chair of the Joint Municipal Water and Sewer Commission. His son, Daniel, has been a member of town council for more than a decade.

The fissures in Pelion are rooted in the past but opened wide in December 2024. That’s when town council voted to hire Morton Investigative Services.

Keith Morton is a longtime Upstate law enforcement official who formed Morton Investigative Services in 2020 after retiring as Fountain Inn police chief.

In an interview, Shumpert said the town hired Morton to investigate how Pelion’s chief then, John Rebolj, responded to a child welfare case.

Shumpert said he obtained Morton’s name from the Municipal Association of South Carolina, where he asked for advice about ways to handle the complaint against Rebolj.

Morton asked the town for a $2,500 retainer, an hourly rate of $125 and travel expenses, town records show. He arrived in Pelion in early January 2025. Armed with a voice recorder and notebook, Morton interviewed the police chief, the mayor and several council members.

But Morton’s investigation would soon widen.

The mayor’s rival

When Morton interviewed Rebolj, the police chief told him that he believed his relationship with the mayor went downhill after an alleged groping incident in 2022 at Shumpert’s grocery store. (The allegation involved a town official but not the mayor.) The department referred the matter to SLED, a move Rebolj said upset Shumpert. A SLED spokesperson confirmed the agency received a request to investigate, but the case was closed after the Attorney General’s Office declined to prosecute.

During Morton’s interview with Rebolj, the two also talked about morale in the town and his actions as police chief, records show.

In addition to speaking with Rebolj, Morton also sought out John Elkin, a Lexington County business owner and former police officer. While with the department in 2023, Elkin chided the mayor’s son, Daniel Shumpert, about riding a golf cart on a major highway, according to a complaint Elkin later filed with the Ethics Commission.

In the complaint, Elkin wrote that the mayor and other council members met with each other about the golf cart issue, forming a quorum that should have been publicly reported. It’s unclear what the Ethics Commission did with the complaint. The agency declined to comment.

More clear is the rift between Elkin and the mayor. Elkin was Shumpert’s only challenger in the most recent election in 2025.

During Morton’s investigation, Elkin relayed a number of concerns about the town’s operations and acknowledged that he had made multiple public records requests concerning the mayor and municipal operations, including how tax dollars were being used.

Elkin told The Lexington County Chronicle that he originally thought Morton wanted to talk about police department policies. But by the end of Morton’s questioning, “I felt that it was an investigation on the four of us that have been vocal against the mayor.”

The fallout happened even before Morton wrapped up his work.

Rebolj resigned as police chief the day after Morton interviewed him. In a sworn affidavit obtained by the newspapers, Rebolj said that he believed his clashes with the mayor and the mayor’s son meant his days as chief were numbered, and that “Mayor Shumpert was setting me up to be fired.” In his affidavit, Rebolj said the Shumperts were trying to solidify control over the police department. His affidavit said Pelion was experiencing a “type of small town tyranny.” He said he provided the affidavit to SLED when they questioned him last June. A SLED spokesperson said the agency closed the case Aug. 21.

Morton also interviewed two council members who had expressed concerns about the town’s direction – Larry Sossamon and Chuck Ingle. Both told Morton that they thought the police chief was doing a good job but that morale in the town was low because of infighting.

Sossamon told Morton that the Shumperts “were only looking out for themselves,” records show.

In interviews with the newspapers, Morton said one of the goals of his investigation was to help the town heal. “Aside from looking at the operations and the things that they hired me to look at, it was my great hope that I could help them find some common ground.”

That hope was tested, Morton recalled to The Lexington County Chronicle. “I’ve heard so much crap out of that little town and some of the things that was said,” he said. “When I met with (Mayor Shumpert), he told me all this stuff in his opinion, and I just said, ‘I don’t think I should just take your word for it. I think everyone should get a bite at the apple. I think I need to talk to every council member and get their input.’”

Morton also told the newspapers that both the mayor and his son repeatedly asked him to review social media posts that targeted them.

“They called me a lot just to say, ‘Hey, somebody’s posting so-and-so,’ or ‘Is that slander?’” Morton said. “One thing I told them to do, I said, ‘You need to hire a city attorney and ask him these questions.’”

An investigation’s wake

About a month after he began, Morton presented his report at a closed-door meeting of the council.

Morton’s report said that Rebolj violated state confidentiality laws and police procedures by divulging the name of a resident who requested a child welfare check. (The Lexington County Chronicle and The Post and Courier obtained the seven-page report through a Freedom of Information Act request.) Morton charged Pelion $6,600, invoices show.

Morton’s work was over, but the ripple effects would continue.

Last October, about a week before the local election, Larry Sossamon, one of Morton’s interviewees, announced on Facebook that he and fellow council member Chuck Ingle were ending their re-election bids. That left their two challengers, including Mayor Shumpert’s cousin, Starr Corley, to run unopposed.

In an interview, Sossamon said that because the scope of Morton’s investigation had gone beyond what council had approved, he was concerned he could be blamed for any irregularities stemming from it. He decided that leaving the town council was the best step.

“When one person/family has a lock on the town, that's not good,” he said after dropping out of the November race. “I’m done. I see that it’s fighting a losing battle.”

Ingle declined to be interviewed.

Tongue lashing

In interviews, Mayor Shumpert said he did not know what caused the decline of his relationship with the police chief. (The town hired Chris Garner, a former Pelion police chief, to succeed Rebolj.)

“I have stayed up nights trying to understand what caused this,” he said, adding that “the rift that we had and the rift I had on council was with the two members that aren't there (anymore).”

Shumpert denied any self-serving motivation in recommending Morton’s hiring.

“My name was put all over social media with this stuff, and my family had to endure it for months,” he said.

Shumpert’s attorney, Greg Harris, joined the interview and interjected, “Stop here, Frank,” several times. “This is as bad a behind-the-scenes smear campaign as I've ever seen,” the attorney said. “This private investigator had not been hired by Frank Shumpert to target individuals.”

Still, Morton’s report to council ended with a tongue-lashing similar to one from parents to their squabbling children: “I urge each of you to put aside petty differences and prepare for the eminent (sic) growth of the town you love.”