Beaufort man pleads guilty in drive-by shooting that killed 5-year-old
A Beaufort man was sentenced to 3 decades in prison for the 2021 killing of a 5-year-old boy during a drive-by shooting on his grandmother’s home, according to the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Gregory Harris Scott, 23, pleaded guilty Thursday to three felony charges related to the fatal gunfire, which struck and killed 5-year-old DeAndre “Master” Robinson as the boy played with his father in the front bedroom. Prosecutors say he had no previous criminal record.
His sister, 30-year-old Mittie Scott, has yet to stand trial after she was charged as an accessory to the killing earlier this year.
Scott’s sentences for the two lesser gun charges would run concurrently with his 30-year term for murder, according to Jasper County court records. He would receive credit for just over 1,200 days already spent in the Jasper County jail, bringing his maximum sentence to about 27 years.
Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen handed down the sentence Thursday at the Jasper County Courthouse.
A Beaufort defense attorney who represented Scott did not immediately respond to an email with questions.
‘I wish I could have told him I loved him’
Robinson was jumping on a bed inside his grandmother’s home on Wagon Branch Loop on Dec. 28, 2021, when Scott’s gunshots ripped through the walls and hit the boy in the shoulder and chest, according to the Solicitor’s Office press release.
“I keep saying if he wasn’t jumping on the bed, he would probably still be here,” the boy’s mother, Deanna Frazier, told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in the days following his murder.
The child’s father quickly covered his son and crawled them to the rear of the house, prosecutors said. It wasn’t until after the gunfire stopped that he realized his son had been shot.
After his father and grandmother rushed him to an ambulance, Robinson entered cardiac arrest and died on the way to Coastal Carolina Hospital.
Robinson went to Ridgeland Elementary School and was nearly finished with his first year of kindergarten at the time of his death, his mother said.
“I wish I could have told him I loved him and how special he was,” Frazier previously said. “I’m sure he knows that. I told him every day of his life.”
