South Carolina prosecutors plan to seek death penalty in trial of man accused of killing 5

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man arrested nearly two years ago and accused of fatally shooting five people.

The 7th Circuit Solicitor’s Office filed a motion last week expressing its plans to seek capital punishment for 26-year-old James Douglas Drayton, news outlets reported. The solicitor’s office declined to comment about the decision. No trial date has been set.

Drayton was arrested in October 2022 and charged with five counts of murder and five counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. The victims were found in a home in Inman, about 13 miles (21 kilometers) northwest of Spartanburg. Four were dead at the scene: Thomas Ellis Anderson, 37; James Derek Baldwin, 49; Mark Allen Hewitt, 59; and Adam Daniel Morley, 32. The fifth person shot, Roman Christean Megael Rocha, 19, died later at a hospital.

Drayton’s attorney, public defender Michael David Morin, declined to comment, citing the ongoing case.

At the time of Drayton’s arrest, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said that Drayton had confessed to the killings, telling police that he was high on methamphetamine and hadn’t slept for four days. Drayton handed over the gun he said he used to kill everyone in the home where he was also staying, a place people went frequently to use drugs, Wright said.

Drayton was arrested in Georgia after a crash during a police chase. He was driving a car taken from the Inman home, Wright said in 2022. Deputies in Burke County, Georgia — about 145 miles (233 kilometers) away — said they chased Drayton after he tried to rob a convenience store at gunpoint and kidnap an employee.

South Carolina, one of 27 states that allow the death penalty, hasn’t performed an execution since 2011. A recent ruling by the South Carolina Supreme Court upholding the use of the firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, opened the door to restart executions in the state.