2nd teen to be tried as an adult in 2019 killing of a student outside Bluffton church
A second teenager will be tried as an adult in the case of Trey Blackshear, an 18-year-old high school senior who was killed outside a Bluffton church nearly one year ago.
At a hearing on Friday, a judge determined that Xavier Barnes, 17, of Lady’s Island will go to trial as an adult after being arrested and charged with murder by the Bluffton Police Department on Dec. 28, 2019, said Capt. Joe Babkiewicz.
Barnes was booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center on Friday, according to jail records. He was previously held at the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia due to his age.
Two days before Christmas Day last year, Trey Blackshear was found shot in the parking lot of Lord of Life Lutheran Church on Buckwalter Parkway around 2:20 p.m.
Classmates described the Hilton Head High School senior as a good friend, known for his humor and love of soccer.
On Dec. 2, 2020, another suspect charged in the case, 17-year-old Terrance Wing of St. Helena Island, was transferred from DJJ to the Beaufort County jail on a judge’s order. Wing was first arrested by U.S. Marshals, who found him in Jacksonville, Fla., earlier this year.
Barnes, who was 16 at the time, turned himself in to police on Dec. 28, 2019 at the Beaufort County Sheriff’s main office on Duke Street, according to a Bluffton police report.
Four people have been charged in the case.
A few weeks after Blackshear was found dead, Bluffton police arrested and charged Jaesean Jeffrey Redd, 20, and Kionna Michele Ferguson, 19, with accessory after the fact to murder.
Arrest warrants for Ferguson and Redd detail the motive for the shooting as “an attempted robbery,” the documents say. Ferguson drove a 2001 Toyota Camry with Barnes, Redd, and Wing as passengers fleeing the scene.
