Atlanta Man Convicted of Manslaughter in Death of Bluffton Host

A Beaufort County jury convicted Atlanta resident Jeremiah Theodore McGee-Ashton of voluntary manslaughter in the 2022 shooting death of Mark Tony Haynes, a 57-year-old Bluffton man who had given McGee-Ashton and his girlfriend a place to stay before attempting to evict them.

The verdict was returned in Beaufort County General Sessions Court and announced March 26 by the Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor's Office. The outcome closes a nearly four-year prosecution that began with a fatal dispute inside the home Haynes had opened to the couple from Atlanta.

Voluntary manslaughter in South Carolina requires jurors to find that a defendant acted in the heat of passion upon sufficient legal provocation, distinguishing the charge from murder. It remains a serious felony, and a sentencing hearing in General Sessions Court is expected to follow, consistent with standard procedure in the Fourteenth Circuit.

The Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor's Office oversees prosecutions across five South Carolina counties: Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper. Though the crime and trial occurred in Beaufort County, the conviction appears in the circuit's public announcements because the same office handles violent-crime cases arising anywhere in the five-county region, including Allendale. The circuit's press releases on jury verdicts, indictments, and grand-jury returns serve as one of the clearest public records of how serious cases in the region move from charge to trial.

McGee-Ashton is entitled to appellate review, a point the Solicitor's Office includes in its standard post-verdict communications. The written indictment, full case docket, and sentencing schedule are available through the Beaufort County court clerk's office and the Fourteenth Circuit's public records index at scsolicitor14.org.