Hilton Head grandfather calls for changes after two suspects reach plea deal in grandson’s murder case

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WTOC) - One Hilton Head family is disappointed by two recent plea deals made in a Beaufort County courtroom.

“This is my grandson, Trey Blackshear, and he was 18 years old,” Grandfather of Blackshear, David Mouser said.

Blackshear had just graduated early from high school on Hilton Head Island in December 2019 and was planning to commit to college to play soccer.

“Trey was going to college, getting ready to get engaged, and was a great kid with a great future,” Mouser said.

The former Tormenta FC star, just four days after his graduation, drove himself and a friend to the parking lot of the Life Lutheran Church in Bluffton, where he met up with another car.

“It just went sour,” Mouser said. “Trey and his best friend were in front of his car, two boys got in the back, and he says that his friend had a gun in the back of his best friend’s head. Trey grabs for the gun, and the boy in the back shoots him point blank.”

Four people were arrested in the case.

The first suspect, Terrance Wing, the convicted gunman, was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year.

This week, two more of the suspects, Jaesean Redd and Kiona Ferguson, were in court and each reached a plea deal with the state.

Redd got a 15-year suspended sentence, and Ferguson got a 10-year suspended sentence.

Both will be able to serve five years of probation, but if they break that probation, they will serve their sentence in a state prison.

“If we don’t take these people when we find them and put them through a correctional institution, then we have failed the rule of law,” Mouser said. “Their plea was, ‘Well, we have children,’ they get to go home and hug their children, I get to walk down to a gravesite.”

The family of Blackshear wanted them to serve time behind bars.

“It does the best job it can, it’s all we got, but for crying out loud, we can’t be complacent,” Mouser said. “In memory of my grandson and the death we’ve experienced, I demand that our society somehow snap to attention.”

To honor the life of Blackshear, the family has been partnering with Tormenta FC to give out a scholarship to a deserving person each year.

“Some people have a child for six years, some people have a brother or sister for 40 years, in this case, we had him for 18 years,” Mouser said. We have to have the strength to say, ‘God, at least we had him for that amount of time.”

A trial for the fourth suspect, Xavier Barnes, has not been scheduled.