Gunman gets life sentence after 2022 murder outside Hilton Head strip mall
A Hardeeville man was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty in the 2022 slaying of a Colombian immigrant outside a Hilton Head Island shopping center.
Nayquan Unique “Switch” Gadson, 22, was convicted Friday of murder and a felony gun possession offense. Jurors reached a verdict of not guilty on the related charge of armed robbery.
The convicted killer still faces a laundry list of charges in Beaufort and the neighboring Jasper County, including his alleged sexual assault of a young girl in Hardeeville that happened while he was out on bond for the 2022 murder.
Prosecutors alleged Gadson was trying to carry out a robbery on Nov. 15, 2022, when he shot and killed 19-year-old Breiner Daniel Puerto-Gonzalez in the parking lot of Northridge Plaza, located off U.S. 278 near the island’s airport. The murder victim was a native of Bogotá who was working at a Hilton Head hotel while in the U.S. on a work visa, according to the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Among the prosecution’s 24 witnesses was Puerto-Gonzalez’s girlfriend, who was on a video call with him as the murder occurred. She testified that despite never seeing Gadson outside of that call, she immediately recognized him as one of the men visible on her screen during her boyfriend’s final moments.
Circuit Court Judge Robert Bonds handed down Gadson’s life sentence Friday at the Beaufort County Courthouse.
“This murder was not merely senseless — it was entirely random,” Deputy Solicitor Mary Jones of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, who prosecuted the case, wrote in a press release. “This defendant encountered Breiner Puerto-Gonzalez by chance and killed him moments later because he knew he was alone and carrying cash. It’s simply sickening. This jury served justice by taking Nayquan Gadson off the streets.”
Already convicted in Puerto-Gonzalez’s killing was Christopher Alexander “Pito” Escobedo, 21, who witnessed the incident and reportedly tried to intervene before fleeing alongside Gadson after the fatal gunfire. Escobedo pleaded guilty in December 2023 as an accessory after the fact to murder and received a suspended sentence of three years probation, later being ordered to serve his original five-year prison term after he violated his probation conditions.
Escobedo is serving his sentence at a state prison in Sumter County. His projected release date is in December 2026, according to inmate records from the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
About three months after his arrest, Gadson was released from jail on cash bonds totaling $125,000. A S.C. Circuit Court judge stipulated in Gadson’s bond conditions that the defendant must wear an ankle monitor and couldn’t own firearms, possess narcotics or contact his co-defendant.
While out on bond for the murder, Hardeeville police charged Gadson with sexually abusing an underage girl after allegedly “luring” her to a local residence. That charge and several others stemming from his February 2024 arrest remained pending in Jasper County court.
Beaufort-based defense attorney Jeffrey S. Stephens, who represented Gadson in the murder trial, wrote in an email that jurors found the defendant guilty “on a different theory” than what the prosecution argued: While prosecutors framed the killing as a “crime of opportunity gone wrong,” Stephens wrote, the jury reached the conclusion that it was “a random shooting without an attempted robbery.”
Stephens added that Gadson respects the jury’s verdict but “maintains his innocence.” The attorney would file a motion for a new trial later this week and was prepared to file subsequent appeals, he said.
What happened?
Surveillance video from a convenience store near Northridge Plaza the night of Nov. 15, 2022, showed Gadson and Escobedo arriving on bicycles, loitering near the parking lot after finding the store locked, according to the Solicitor’s Office press release.
A few minutes later, Puerto-Gonzalez was let into the store by a clerk who knew him. Gadson and Escobedo followed him inside, noticing that Puerto-Gonzalez had cash on him. The defendants left the store shortly before Puerto-Gonzalez, who rode his bike in the same direction they had gone.
Escobedo testified that as he urinated in bushes near the Northridge strip mall, he heard Gadson begin to assault Puerto Gonzalez, the release says. Escobedo said he attempted to intervene, but Gadson fired five shots as the victim tried to get away — first a single shot, and then four more times in quick succession.
Puerto-Gonzalez was fatally shot in the neck. His body was found around 1:30 a.m. the following morning by the owner of a nearby restaurant after he closed for the night, prosecutors said.
Beaufort County deputies found five .40-caliber shell casings at the scene. Surveillance footage showed Escobedo running away from the area, followed seconds later by Gadson fleeing on a bicycle. Gadson reportedly recruited a friend to drive himself and Escobedo out of the county before the defendants split up.
Two days after the shooting, Escobedo flew to his father’s home in Honduras but returned shortly after at his mother’s bidding. He then “cooperated with investigators” and later went on to testify against Gadson, according to the Solicitor’s Office.
The day after Escobedo was charged as an accessory, police arrested Gadson at a family member’s house in Port Wentworth, Georgia. He was then transferred to the Beaufort County jail and formally charged with Puerto-Gonzalez’s murder.
Although the murder weapon was never found, a video on Gadson’s cellphone showed him carrying a handgun “consistent with the firearm used in the murder,” the Solicitor’s Office said.
In Beaufort County, Gadson faces two pending felony charges stemming from a July 2021 shooting that injured two people at the Hilton Head Gardens apartments. He was arrested on those charges in October of that year, also in Port Wentworth.
Gadson faces an additional felony charge in Jasper County for failing to stop for police’s blue lights, originating from another arrest in July 2024.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 1:18 PM.
