‘It’s been a nightmare’: Trial begins for man accused in 2019 St. Helena kidnapping, beating
Opening statements were presented Tuesday morning in a trial for one of two men charged in a 2019 beating and kidnapping of a couple on St. Helena Island after it was alleged the man was having an affair with the defendant’s wife.
Justin Granet, 45, of St. Helena Island, was charged with first-degree assault and battery, possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime and two counts of kidnapping connected to the March 2019 incident, court records show.
Another man, Don “Chris” Bliss, 45, of Beaufort, was also charged with two counts of kidnapping, possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime and first-degree assault and battery.
The men are being tried separately.
In opening statements at the Beaufort County Courthouse in Granet’s trial, Hannah Kidd, the attorney with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office prosecuting the case, said that the March 2019 incident was spurred from Granet’s desire to win “at all costs.”
“Those actions he (Granet) took were not motivated by anger, jealousy or revenge,” Kidd said. “They were motivated by an absolute desire to win … feel powerful.”
Granet’s attorney, Scott Lee, said Kidd’s theory is a “good story” but that it did not accurately represent what happened in 2019, and that it was actually the culmination of a “long-played-out plan” by the man who was beaten that night.
“(The) first thing he (Granet) said that night is, ‘I can’t believe I let him win,’” Lee said. “Justin at that point realized exactly what had happened. [The victim] had set this up.”
What allegedly happened
On March 11, 2019, police were called out to Granet’s St. Helena Island home on Chaplin Drive after getting a 911 hangup call. The married man and woman — who said in a June 2022 interview with the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that they were friends with Granet and his wife — alleged they were “lured” to the home. While there, they said, they were “duct-taped” and the man was “beaten” after he was accused of sleeping with Granet’s wife.
Granet’s wife had told her husband that she slept with the victim while visiting him and that he allegedly blackmailed her.
In testimony from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies who responded to the home, officials said there was no answer when they arrived but that they could hear voices inside.
When police did get inside the home, they found the man who was beaten not moving with blood coming from his head, according to previous reporting from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. That man was taken to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Inside the house, police said they found a blunt object they believed was used in the attack on the man, four pounds of marijuana and two firearms.
Since the incident, the couple said they search their home every night before bed to make sure it’s safe.
“The look in those guys’ eyes, they were going to kill us,” the woman said. “It’s been a nightmare for three years.”
The trial is continuing Tuesday afternoon.
This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 2:16 PM.
