‘Planned assassination’: SC woman sentenced in Rock Hill self-defense killing
A South Carolina judge has sentenced a woman to 10 years in what he called a “planned assassination” where she brought her girlfriend a gun to confront a Rock Hill co-worker before the co-worker killed the girlfriend in what prosecutors said was a self-defense shooting.
York County Circuit Court Judge Bill McKinnon gave Brittney Nicole Reed the maximum sentence under a plea deal after Reed helped Samarian Lindsay block the co-worker in with her car. Lindsay and the man had argued earlier in the day at DHL in Rock Hill.
“This was basically an assassination attempt,” McKinnon said Monday afternoon in York County criminal court. “It’s pre-planned. I mean they intercepted him in traffic to block his car in and then tried to kill him.”
Lindsay got out of Reed’s car with the gun Reed brought in a grocery bag and confronted the man, prosecutors said. Lindsay died after the man shot her.
Reed, 34, pleaded guilty in September to first-degree assault and battery and faced up to 10 years after she initially faced a murder charge. She was sentenced Monday in York County criminal court.
Her lawyers asked for probation, but McKinnon balked at any sentence less than the max under the negotiated plea. McKinnon described the plea deal from prosecutors an “extraordinarily generous offer” after the man was confronted before firing the fatal shots.
The man was not charged. Prosecutors said he fired in self-defense.
“She (Reed) can’t say she didn’t know what’s going to happen when she’s the one who brought the gun...,” McKinnon said. “She gets the message to bring the gun and ‘we are going to get this guy after work.’”
McKinnon said if the man had been killed the sentence against Reed “would likely have been a life sentence.”
More, McKinnon refused a lesser sentence because Reed is now pregnant. She had been free on bail for about a year.
“I’m not going to give her a break because she is pregnant,” McKinnon said. “That’s not fair to defendants who are not pregnant.”
Death in Rock Hill after work
Lindsay confronted the man after work ended after 3 p.m., prosecutor Leslie Robinson said. Earlier, Lindsay sent Reed a text message telling her to “bring a tool” to the job site and pick her up after work, according to Robinson.
The man tried “multiple times” to avoid the confrontation when leaving work before Reed boxed his car in near the workplace off Riverview Road not far from U.S. 21, Robinson said.
Robinson asked for the 10-year maximum the assault and battery charge carries under South Carolina law.
“There couldn’t be a worse outcome for an A and B first (assault and battery first-degree) where somebody is dead,” Robinson said.
Shirley Moore, Lindsay’s aunt, told Judge McKinnon, “the loss has devastated our family.”
“Ms. Reed chose to take a gun to what she knew was a volatile situation,” Moore said in court.
Defense: Dispute had been “boiling” for couple of months
Reed did not speak in court Monday . Her lawyers told the judge she was pregnant and had been hospitalized for related complications while on bail.
One of her lawyers, Ryan Payne, said Reed and Lindsay had been in a relationship for about 10 years. Payne argued in asking for probation or home confinement that Reed was only pleading guilty to driving the car in the incident. He said “people collectively made bad decisions” the day of the incident.
He said there had been an ongoing dispute between Lindsay and the male co-worker.
“It’s something that had been boiling under the surface for a couple months,” Payne said.
