Teen suspect to be tried as adult in 18-year-old student’s killing outside Bluffton church
A teenager charged in the fatal shooting of a Hilton Head Island High School senior in a Bluffton parking lot will be tried as an adult, a judge has determined.
On Dec. 23, 18-year-old Trey Blackshear, described as a good friend who loved soccer and always had a smile on his face, was fatally shot in the driver’s seat of his car while parked at the Lord of Life Lutheran Church along Buckwalter Parkway.
In the weeks following his killing, four people were arrested, including two 16-year-old suspects who were both charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Their identities were not released at the time because they were minors.
One of those suspects, Terrance Wing of St. Helena Island, was booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center on Monday, Bluffton Police Department spokesperson Joy Nelson confirmed Wednesday. He had initially been arrested in January by U.S. Marshals, who found him in Jacksonville, Florida.
After being extradited, Wing, now 17, was held at the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia because of his age, Nelson said, adding that he was moved to the local jail after the judge decided Wing would be tried as an adult.
Other arrests in the killing
The first arrest was made days after the shooting when a 16-year-old male turned himself into law enforcement. Like Wing, he was charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
The second 16-year-old’s identity had still not been released as of Wednesday, and he was not in the Beaufort County Detention Center jail log. However, prosecutors have also petitioned to have the suspect tried as an adult, 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office spokesperson Jeff Kidd said. A judge has not made a ruling on that decision yet.
A few weeks after the first arrest, Jaesean Jeffrey Redd, 20, and Kionna Michele Ferguson, 19, were also arrested and charged with accessory after the fact to murder.
Arrest warrants for the two say Ferguson was driving Redd and the two 16-year-old suspects in the vehicle that was seen “fleeing the scene” on surveillance videos. The warrants said the incident was an “attempted armed robbery.”
Redd and Ferguson had the same address listed in the jail log, and a Bluffton Police report said Redd and Wing were related.
No trial dates for any of those charged are listed in Beaufort County court documents.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 2:18 PM.
