1 dead, 1 arrested after early morning machete fight in northern Beaufort County
One man is dead and another has been arrested after a machete attack in Burton early Wednesday morning, according to authorities.
Michael Goode, 46, of Beaufort was charged Wednesday with one count of murder and one count of possession of a weapon in commission of a violent crime, according to Beaufort County Detention Center jail logs.
Around 2:20 a.m. Wednesday, deputies arrived at Horton Drive after receiving a call about a fight. They watched a man swinging a machete toward the ground, according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Bob Bromage.
He said the man, who they said was Goode, dropped the machete and ran after deputies asked him to put the weapon down. When they got closer to where he had been swinging, they found a Georgia man, Rodney Watson, 66, lying on the ground seriously wounded, he said.
Watson was transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly after, according to Bromage.
“Numerous witnesses identified the male subject responsible for attacking Watson with the machete,” according to a release from the Sheriff’s Office. It said Goode had an outstanding warrant for an unrelated assault and battery.
At 8:45 a.m., deputies learned that Goode was at a home on the same street where the machete attack took place, Bromage said.
Deputies called out for him to surrender, and he walked out without incident, where he was arrested on the unrelated assault and battery arrest warrant, said Bromage.
By mid-day Wednesday, deputies charged Goode with crimes relating to the machete attack and transported him to jail.
An autopsy for Watson will be conducted this week by the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office at the Medical University of South Carolina, Bromage said.
This story was originally published July 8, 2020 at 11:18 AM.
