RIDGEWAY – Agents from the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) arrested a Ridgeway man earlier this month and charged him with criminal sexual conduct against a pair of young girls in incidents that date back as far as 1983. The charges come a little more than a year and a half after a similar incident in Fairfield County.
Douglas Clifton McFarland Sr., 79, was arrested by SLED agents on April 2. According to one arrest warrant, McFarland, of Kingfisher Drive in Ridgeway, allegedly fondled a 5-year-old girl between Nov. 30, 1983 and Dec. 1, 1989 when the victim was staying at McFarland’s home, then on Universal Drive in Columbia.
A second arrest warrant alleges that between Jan. 1, 1987 and Dec. 31, 1993, McFarland fondled and molested a neighborhood girl, also in his Universal Drive home. The victim states in the warrant that the incidents were ongoing and began when she was approximately 7 years old and continued until she was approximately 13.
On Aug. 5, 2013, McFarland was arrested by Fairfield County Sheriff’s investigators after a 7-year-old girl spending the weekend at McFarland’s Kingfisher Drive home said she was fondled by McFarland. The case was transferred to SLED after evidence led investigators to believe the allegations extended to several S.C. counties over a long period of time.
McFarland was booked at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia and posted out on a $15,000 bond on April 3.