In a tragic series of events that unfolded in Beaufort, South Carolina, 25-year-old Robert Blanding of St. Helena Island was found dead on November 22, 2017. A male, his body was discovered in a drainage ditch off F&B Road on Lady's Island, bearing multiple gunshot wounds. The grim discovery marked the beginning of a complex investigation that would soon reveal a second homicide and lead to the arrests of several young individuals.
Robert was last seen alive on the evening of November
21, 2017, leaving a residence with his 19-year-old nephew, Chaz Blanding. The two were reportedly as close as brothers. Following the discovery of Robert's body, Chaz was reported missing and endangered by his family. The search for the teenager ended in heartbreak ten days later, on December 2, when his body was also found with multiple gunshot wounds in a wooded area off Simmons Road on St. Helena Island.
The investigation into the double homicide quickly led to several suspects. By early December 2017, authorities had arrested three teenagers in connection with Robert Blanding's death: 16-year-old Raheem Bennett, 18-year-old Channon Preston Jr., and 19-year-old Nashon Pringle. Bennett and Pringle were charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, while Preston initially faced a charge of accessory after the fact to murder. A fourth individual, 20-year-old Symone Jones, turned herself in to investigators on December 11 and was also charged with murder. An arrest warrant indicated that Jones had allegedly driven Robert Blanding to the location where he was shot. More than a year later, in February 2019, a fifth suspect, 19-year-old Gerard Kenard Daise, was also charged with two counts of murder in connection with the slayings.
The legal proceedings that followed saw a series of developments. In March 2021, Nashon Pringle, then 21, and his half-brother Raheem Bennett, then 19, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. Pringle was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Bennett received an 18-year sentence for their roles in what was described as an apparent robbery attempt. Symone Jones, who was 23 at the time of her sentencing in February 2021, had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory after the fact to murder in October 2019 and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Charges against Channon Preston were ultimately dismissed. The case against Gerard Daise went to trial in November 2020 but resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial. Subsequently, the prosecutor's office decided not to retry Daise, and the charges against him were dropped. The prosecution noted the difficulty of proving the case as it relied heavily on the testimony of co-defendants with little physical evidence.
