The Highway Patrol reports a man has died after the building he was in was struck by Ford pickup driven by a former talent show contestant from the Upstate. Master Trooper Mitchell Ridgeway said the driver of a 2011 Ford pickup left the roadway, traveling onto a private driveway on West Murph Road and struck a building.
54 year old Larry Duane Parris was inside that building and injured in the collision. Parris was taken to a hospital where he later died. The driver of that Ford, 17 year old Caleb Andrew Kennedy of Roebuck was arrested and charged with felony driving under the influence resulting in death. Kennedy was booked into the Spartanburg County Detention Center and is awaiting a bond hearing.
Kennedy, an aspiring country music artist, was a Top 5 contestant on American Idol before he left the show following a social media scandal in 2020 after a Snapchat post surfaced showing him appearing next to a person wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood. Kennedy apologized for the post saying it occurred when he was younger and told his fans he hoped he could one day regain the public's trust.
