New details in Port Royal gas station robbery where clerk was shot multiple times
A magistrate upheld charges Friday against a Beaufort man accused of robbing a Parker’s gas station in Port Royal and shooting a clerk there three times.
Shykeim Raykawan Wright, 25, of Beaufort, is charged with attempted murder, two counts of armed robbery, two counts of possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
He was arrested in Marietta, Georgia, on Feb. 2 and booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center on Feb. 7. He remains there with no bond set.
Investigator Norman McCowan with Port Royal Police Department testified at Wright’s Friday preliminary hearing, revealing new details of the Jan. 26 robbery.
McCowan said police were alerted to the robbery around 5 p.m. on Jan. 26, and saw that “the clerk who was working had been shot multiple times and the suspect had fled on foot.”
According to McCowan, store security footage showed Wright getting a slushie, an orange soda and chips and getting rung up by the clerk, who was the only other person in the store. Wright pulled out a gun at the register and “two or three seconds later fired and struck the clerk.”
The clerk was shot in the left cheek, left shoulder and left leg. He was transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital for treatment.
McCowan said he contacted Wright’s family and learned that Wright’s sister gave him a semi-automatic handgun — matching the description of the weapon used in the robbery — a month and a half prior to the incident “for protection.”
The clerk handed Wright money, and Wright also took bills from the cash register. Wright also demanded money from a customer coming into the store as he was leaving. In a police report, Wright was listed as stealing approximately $150 in total, though McCowan said he wasn’t “sure of the accuracy of that.”
McCowan said that police identified Wright as a suspect through security footage, tips from social media posts of the footage, fingerprints collected from the soda bottle and his clothing, namely a Nike headwrap and “very unique” tennis shoes.
“We called around to shoe stores and couldn’t find another pair anywhere in Beaufort County, we couldn’t even find a pair available for sale,” he said.
Beaufort County Magistrate Judge Jean McCormick ruled Friday that there was “probable cause” for all the charges against Wright. He is represented by public defender Juan Tolley.