There are more than 1,700 miles separating Dillon County from New Mexico’s capital city, but officials in both communities have been side-by-side for nearly a year in the wake of a brutal cross-country crime spree that took the lives of first responders in both.

A South Carolina man pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he gunned down a New Mexico state police officer who had stopped to help him, marking a turning point in a case that had been set for trial later this year.