Bond denied for St. Helena teen accused in 6-year-old boy’s accidental shooting death
A circuit court judge denied bond Thursday for 18-year-old Benjamin Shamar Seabrook IV, a St. Helena resident charged with involuntary manslaughter after a 6-year-old boy was accidentally shot and killed in a Beaufort apartment in early March. Court proceedings revealed Seabrook allegedly stored the firearm negligently and, after the gun went off, tried to convince police that the fatal bullet came from elsewhere.
Seabrook, who was returned into custody at the Beaufort County jail after his Thursday morning bond hearing, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, tampering with physical evidence and filing a false police report of a felony violation.
Beaufort police responded around 1:15 p.m. on March 3 to the Cross Creek Apartments, located east of the Walmart on Robert Smalls Parkway. Six-year-old Frankie Washington originally survived the single gunshot wound but died about nine hours later at the Medical University of South Carolina children’s hospital in Charleston.
Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor’s Office prosecutor Mary Jones said Seabrook had been accused of storing a switch-modified pistol under the 6-year-old’s pillow, which inadvertently went off and struck the child in the head. That type of modified firearm, which uses a small “switch” to convert a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic weapon, is classified as a machine gun and therefore prohibited under federal law.
Jones said Seabrook and his half-sister Desarai Bennett, who has also been charged, then hid the handgun and “developed a story” that the deadly bullet had come from outside the apartment. They reportedly “poked a hole” in the apartment’s porch screen to give the appearance of a bullet hole and reported their fabrications to the Beaufort Police Department, the prosecutor added.
Bennett, 22, who lives at the Cross Creek Apartments, was arrested March 19 for filing a false police report, criminal conspiracy and accessory after the fact to a felony. She bailed out the same day on a personal recognizance bond, according to Beaufort County judicial records.
Beaufort police spokesperson Chief Stephenie Price previously said Bennett “assisted” Seabrook with obstruction of justice, a broad offense encompassing any intentional act that impedes the work of the criminal justice system. Criminal conspiracy refers to two or more people banding together to commit a crime.
Marlin Malone Washington, the boy’s father, was called by prosecutors at Thursday’s bond hearing to speak to Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen. Rising from his seat in the courtroom gallery, Washington said he saw Seabrook with the gun at his side in the apartment’s breezeway about three or four days before the accidental shooting. Asked why he had the weapon on him, Seabrook said he had previously been shot with an AK-47 and needed it “for protection,” Washington told the judge.
“But then three, four days later, you’re gonna have a gun under my son’s bed ... and leave out the room?” Washington said. “That’s not fair. It’s too much.”
The 6-year-old boy was born in 2017 and attended Whale Branch Elementary School in Seabrook, according to his obituary.
Anthony Dore, Seabrook’s defense attorney, conceded the child’s death was a “tragic situation” but asked the judge not to revoke bond. He argued that many of his client’s relatives, including the child’s mother, were in attendance “to support him” and did not want to see him go back to jail.
Dore said the Seabrooks were a “very, very close, tight-knit family” whom he had known his entire life, calling Seabrook “mild-mannered” and “shy.” The defense attorney added that the Department of Social Services had performed home visits at the apartment and would soon be following up on the case.
On top of his Feb. 3 arrest for carjacking, felony assault and illegal firearms possession, the prosecution noted Seabrook had also been charged with child neglect. Searching the suspect’s phone after the March 3 accidental shooting, Beaufort police found a video of the same 6-year-old child “playing” with a different gun, Jones said.
The modified handgun that fatally shot the boy was found hidden in one of the apartment’s closets, according to prosecutors. Jones successfully argued for Seabrook’s bond revocation using new bond legislation passed in September 2023, which states that the original bond must be revoked if someone commits a violent crime while out on bond for a previous violent crime.
Investigators from the Beaufort Police Department do not expect additional arrests or charges in this case, Price told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
