Verdict is in: Benton ‘guilty’ of burning robbery victim alive

A jury of five men and seven women found Tommy Lee Benton guilty of murder, burglary and arson for a 2014 reign of terror that took the life of Charles Bryant “CB” Smith.

Smith’s son, Sammy Smith, asked the judge to give Benton the maximum sentence, before returning to the pew he’s occupied every day this week, in tears.

“Bound, beaten and left to die all because that man, sitting at the table thought he had a right to CB’s money more than CB deserved to live,” Lauree Richardson, senior assistant solicitor, told a jury at the end of a week-long trial Friday. “CB’s last 11 days on this earth were horrible.”

“He was tortured. His home was invaded. His business was burned. His home was invaded again,” Richardson said.

The final attack left Smith beaten, restrained, soaked in gasoline and left for dead as his attackers lit the blaze on their way out, according to testimony.

The jury left the room to deliberate at 3:01 p.m. They had a verdict by 4:34 p.m., finding Benton guilty of murder, two counts of first-degree burglary, first-degree arson and third-degree arson.

Benton nodded his head with each “guilty” verdict.

Nine members of the jury returned to the courtroom to hear Judge Steven John’s sentence.

Benton, 24, was ordered to serve the remainder of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. John gave Benton three consecutive life sentences on the murder and two burglary charges, he said, to let any governmental authority or parole board that may consider him for early release in the future to know it was his “decision that he should stay in prison until the day he dies.”

Benton’s mother collapsed leaving the courthouse Friday night.

Smith’s family left in tears.

Texts and testimony

Fingerprints, DNA and other forensic evidence perished in the flames that consumed Smith’s body the morning he was killed – but two key things survived unscathed: the word of two co-defendants who turned on Benton and their text messages planning and bragging about the crime.

“This is not a small job. A small job doesn’t involve people,” Mitchell Douglas Cheatham wrote to Benton in a Facebook message on April 9.

“…It’s fast and easy bro,” Benton replied.

“I’m saying he has a gun. We don’t. We are stupid if we don’t fix that,” Cheatham typed back.

On the morning of April 29, 2014, Benton, Cheatham and 25-year-old Douglas Deshawn Thomas – all armed with guns – used a crowbar to break in through a back door of Smith’s home at 4605 Highway 501 in Aynor.

Hours earlier, Benton had texted someone he was “about to make 100G’s.”

Cheatham said they entered Smith’s house with a “crime bag” containing latex gloves, rope, handcuffs and masks. A gas can sat in the truck outside and, inside, the house was dark, he said.

Cheatham told the court that after they entered, he heard Thomas tell Smith to drop his gun so they rushed into the living room.

“Mr. Smith was on the couch and Tommy was on top of Mr. Smith,” Cheatham said on Thursday. “I could hear that Mr. Smith was being hit with something.”

He told the court that Smith was being uncooperative as they interrogated him about the money, giving them false tips that led them in different directions, but also left them empty-handed.

Thomas hit Smith in the head with his gun and Benton was striking him with a crowbar, Cheatham said.

“His face was bloody,” Cheatham said after one of them illuminated Smith with a cellphone.

Benton grabbed a bottle of vodka and splashed it on Smith’s face, he said.

“Dougy and I were wearing masks, Tommy wasn’t,” Cheatham said. “I should have known what was going to happen.”

Cheatham told the court that Benton and Thomas walked outside to grab the gas can.

“I said we should shoot him because I didn’t want to burn him alive,” Cheatham said as he wiped away a tear from the witness stand on Thursday.

He said that Thomas told him to “let him burn.”

Benton went room-to-room soaking the house and Smith in gasoline, Cheatham said. Then, Cheatham set a T-shirt on fire and tossed it in from the back door, he told the court. The fire didn’t catch, he said, until Benton added more fuel to the flames.

They killed Smith, Cheatham said, to avoid leaving evidence behind that would link them to the crime.

“BTW (by the way) you did good. We are on the South Carolina news,” read one text message from Benton’s phone.

Alibi in doubt

Benton’s mother, stepfather and great grandmother took the witness stand Friday morning to say that Benton was with them during the exact dates and times he is accused of terrorizing Smith.

Benton and another man robbed Smith at gunpoint between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on April 18, 2014, according to the testimony of Mitchell Cheatham, who, like Benton, is charged with murder, arson and burglary in Smith’s death.

Benton’s mother, Christie Hudson, said her son was with her helping unload chairs at her mother’s house in Leland, North Carolina and then at her house, during that time.

In the early hours of April 26, 2014, Cheatham said Benton, Douglas Deshawn Thomas and another man he only knew as “J.T.” broke into Smith’s CBS Furniture Outlet looking for more money.

In testimony Tuesday, Thomas said they set the building on fire when they grew tired of waiting for Smith to come to work.

A battalion fire chief said they were called to the fire at 6:17 a.m.

Benton’s stepfather, Gregory Hudson, told the court he stayed up playing video games with Benton that night until they left for the flea market at 7 a.m.

Then, around 1 a.m. on April 29, 2014, Thomas said they broke into Smith’s home in search of the $100,000 he was rumored to have tucked away somewhere.

Smith’s battered, handcuffed and charred remains were found inside his home, where witnesses said he had been robbed, beaten and restrained before he and his home were set on fire around 2 a.m. on the morning of April 29, 2014.

Seventy-eight-year-old Shelvie Fowler, Benton’s great grandmother, told the court Benton was with her, trying to fix her husband’s oxygen machine two hours before then.

Christie Hudson said her son was with her in Chadbourn, North Carolina the rest of that night, although she admitted she initially told detectives she didn’t know where her son was the morning Smith was killed.

That initial statement was validated by text messages from Benton’s girlfriend at the time, Heather Faircloth, who told Benton his mother had been asking about him that morning.

At 11:58 a.m., Richardson said Faircloth, who was stored under Benton’s contacts as “My Love,” asked “Are you coming home soon?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Ok the front door is unlocked,” she said.

Then, at 2:46 a.m., Richardson said “My Love” sent another text to Benton.

“Where are you? You’re not here yet. You said you were coming, you’re not here. You’re not at your momma’s. She’s asking me,” Richardson told the jury, reading the text messages.

“On the way back,” Benton replied.

All three witnesses admitted under cross examination that they never told detectives Benton had an alibi.

Cellphone evidence presented earlier in the trial revealed Benton’s cellphone was using a tower in Aynor about a mile from Smith’s home between 3:11 a.m. and 5:34 a.m. on April 18.

His phone picked up a signal from the same tower on April 26 at 4:40 a.m. and at 6:13 a.m., according to Sgt. Jonathan Martin with the Horry County Police Department.

An incoming phone call also put Benton in Aynor at 2:42 a.m. and in the Alpine Drive area, where the getaway truck was burned on April 29, 2014, Martin said.

This story was originally published December 8, 2017 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Verdict is in: Benton ‘guilty’ of burning robbery victim alive."