Beaufort man sentenced to 35 years for killing his wife at a local motel in 2017
A 55-year-old Beaufort man was convicted Wednesday of strangling his wife in 2017 while he was out on bond for a domestic violence charge, according to a 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office news release.
Dale Eugene King killed Veronica King, 51, on May 15, 2017, in a motel on Boundary Street where they lived and worked.
After a two-day trial, Beaufort County Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson sentenced King to 35 years in prison.
In March, two months before Veronica King’s death, Beaufort Police were called to the couple’s motel room for a report of a domestic disturbance. They charged King with third-degree domestic violence after noticing marks on his wife’s face, including a swollen left eye, swollen forehead and a bloody lip, according to previous Island Packet reporting.
A relative also told police she witnessed the couple arguing and heard them get into a physical altercation, the release said.
King denied that any dispute took place.
On the day of his wife’s death, King claimed he woke up and found her dead on their couch, the release said. After initially denying harming his wife, he admitted that he hit her.
Veronica King suffered blunt-force trauma to her head, an abrasion near her tailbone, and was strangled, according to a medical examiner at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
“Veronica King’s death is both tragic and cautionary,” said Hunter Swanson, who prosecuted the case and leads the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office Special Victims Unit. “There was a history of alcohol and physical abuse in this relationship, and it turned deadly. Dale King killed his wife with his bare hands, and Veronica died nude and afraid, in her most vulnerable state.”
The Solicitor’s Office and its nonprofit partners operate the 14th Circuit Victims Center, which can arrange shelter, counseling, legal assistance and other services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and similar crimes. Services are available even to those whose abusers have not been charged with a crime.
