Furious husband waits a year to kill wife's lover after learning the girl he was raising was not his biological daughter

A 34-year-old South Carolina antheral ran implicit his wife's person with his car and shot him dead successful a courthouse parking batch aft helium "snapped" erstwhile learning helium was not the begetter of her daughter.

Stephen "Andrew" White pleaded blameworthy to murder and possession of a firearm during a transgression successful the decease of 34-year-old Erin Lee Thomas extracurricular the Laurens County Courthouse. A justice connected Monday sentenced White to 40 years successful prison, according to the 8th Circuit Solicitor's Office.

According to a video of the sentencing proceeding posted by section Fox affiliate WHNS, the incidental occurred connected Aug. 12, 2024, pursuing a proceeding involving White's woman and a kid she shared with Thomas.

Prosecutors said thing retired of the mean occurred during the hearing, specified arsenic a heated argument. After it ended, White, his woman and Thomas went their abstracted ways. White past got into his car and ran down Thomas, who was lasting successful the parking lot, breaking his leg.

The suspect grabbed a weapon retired of a diaper container and tried to sprout Thomas arsenic helium laic connected the ground, but the weapon jammed. White past cleared the jam and changeable Thomas to decease earlier surrendering to police.

White's attorney, Chelsea B. McNeill, told the justice that "something wrong him snapped" erstwhile helium learned that helium was not the biologic begetter of his wife's child.

"One of the worst things that tin hap to a begetter … different than to find retired that your kid is deceased is to find retired that the kid you thought was your ain was really not your own," McNeill said. "Andrew's woman had an matter with Erin anterior to them getting married. She came cleanable astir that matter and helium chose to forgive her. What helium didn't cognize is she had resumed that narration with Erin and became large with Erin's child."

But prosecutors noted that White learned astir the child's paternity astir a twelvemonth earlier the fatal encounter. They besides said the unfortunate was immobilized aft helium was deed by a car and incapable to flight due to the fact that of a breached limb erstwhile White changeable him dead.

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"This was a calculated and profoundly idiosyncratic enactment of unit that unfolded successful a spot wherever families are expected to find peaceful solution to disputes — not further heartache and tragedy," 8th Circuit Solicitor David M. Stumbo said successful a statement. "Stephen White chose to maliciously instrumentality a beingness successful the spot that galore of america travel to enactment to service the nationalist each time and successful the process took 2 begetter figures — the unfortunate and himself — retired of the beingness of an guiltless kid permanently."

At sentencing, Thomas' grandmother, Kay McMahan Trotter, spoke astir however adjacent she was with her grandson. He loved being a father, she said.

"Fatherhood wasn't conscionable a statement to Erin, it became his astir important presumption successful life," she said, adding that helium provided fiscal assistance to White and his woman truthful that his girl could person a bully home. "Erin deserved gratitude, not a bullet."