Uncle to be retried in niece's 2006 shooting death

A Bluffton Iraqi War veteran accused of killing his niece will be retried after his first trial last month ended in a hung jury, 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone said Wednesday.

Calvin Calvert, 29, is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the May 29, 2006, shooting death of17-year-old Cary Mattox, a rising Bluffton High School senior, while the two wrestled over a television remote. He faces five years in prison.

"It's a difficult case. It's always been a difficult case," Stone said. "But I feel the same way I felt the first time I tried this case."

No date has been set for the second trial, Stone said.

During that first two-day trial, jurors heard testimony about Calvert's changing stories. At first he claimed he unknowingly pulled the trigger. He later told a Beaufort County Sheriff's investigator he might have accidentally fired the .45 caliber handgun as he tried to move it away as he and Mattox wrestled over the remote. Jurors also listened to a pathologist's testimony that the gun was fired at point-blank range and was likely pressed again the girl's ear when it went off.

They also heard about Calvert's love for his family, his nine-month tour in Iraq, his three-year stint in the Army and his plans to return to the battlefield as a security contractor.

Stone was not sure why the jury deadlocked and declined to go into details of the prosecution's strategy for the second trial.

Calvert was released after the first trial on $5,000 bond. He and his court-appointed attorney could not be reached for comment.

As attorneys gear up for another trial, some members of Cary Mattox's family just want the ordeal behind them. The shooting and the trial has widened a rift between her parents, who were divorced before the shooting and who still share custody of a 12-year-old son.

Cary Mattox's mom, Robin, believes the shooting was an accident and stands by her brother. Cary's father, Mike, believes Calvert should face jail-time.

"I'm really glad it's going back to trial," Mike Mattox said. "This has definitely taken a serious toll on me, but it's something I need to get through and get behind me. I need closure."

Robin Mattox feels similarly about getting the trial over with.

"I would have never opened my arms to my brother to stay with my family if I would have ever thought for a second he had any intentions to harm anyone,"she said. "This was just a accident. A very bad accident."

Both parents said they're doing what they think their daughter would have wanted.

Leslie Mattox, Mike's sister and Cary's aunt, said the family won't be able to move on with their lives until the trial is over.

"I don't want to sit through that again. No one does," she said. "But I want to see the right thing done, and that can't happen until this trial is finished."