Two armed men held up a man in Piedmont just after 9 p.m. on August 8, forced him to strip off his clothes, and drove away in his stolen car, according to deputies. The vehicle turned up wrecked the next day near Bessie Road and Payne Drive, but no arrests have been made.
The Greenville County Sheriff's Office is investigating the robbery and carjacking, which happened near the intersection of East Main Street and Bessie Road in Piedmont, an unincorporated community that straddles Greenville and Anderson counties. As reported by WYFF, the two armed men robbed the victim of his belongings, demanded he remove his clothes, then stole his car. The victim was not injured, authorities said.
Deputies recovered the stolen vehicle the following day, August 9, after it was involved in a crash near Bessie Road and Payne Drive, though the station's report does not indicate whether anyone was found inside or taken into custody at the crash site. No suspect descriptions or motive have been released, and as of publication, the sheriff's office had made no arrests in the case.
Why Piedmont Falls to County Deputies
Why Piedmont Falls to County Deputies Piedmont is an unincorporated community that straddles Greenville and Anderson counties. Piedmont sits along the Saluda River and had a population of 5,411 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, per Greenville County figures. County planning documents show the broader Piedmont study area had 18,867 residents in 2023.
That growth adds context to the demands placed on deputies covering outlying pockets of the county. Greenville County is South Carolina's most populous county, with an estimated 592,843 residents in 2026 and a local unemployment rate of 3.7 percent as of June 2026, according to S&P Global Ratings, and includes large unincorporated stretches like Piedmont.
Part of a String of Upstate Robbery Cases
The Piedmont case follows a run of violent robbery investigations Greenville County deputies handled in July, including an overnight store robbery in which a victim was shot and a stickup at an Old Buncombe Road food truck that left a customer facing a gun, as previously reported by Hoodline in its coverage of a violent Greenville store heist and its report on the food truck stickup. Statewide, South Carolina's robbery rate actually fell 11.7 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division crime statistics, even as Upstate deputies continue chasing a string of individual cases like this one.
Steep Penalties Await If Suspects Are Caught
Steep Penalties Await If Suspects Are Caught If the men responsible are identified and convicted, they would face criminal penalties.
Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers of Greenville at 864-23-CRIME. Whether forensic evidence collected from the crashed vehicle near Bessie Road and Payne Drive has produced any leads remains unclear, and deputies have not said how close they are to identifying the two men involved.
