Loopholes in the system have allowed a child rapist to be freed to Myrtle Beach. Twice.
A convicted child rapist walked out of South Carolina prison earlier this year despite having active warrants in Myrtle Beach for more counts of sexually assaulting children.
Now, he won’t face those allegations as the state decided to drop the Myrtle Beach charges.
Twice this year, legal system loopholes benefited Shikeem Antwan Bristol, 27, who is no longer in police custody.
Bristol’s criminal history dates back to when he was a teen in Florida. He was convicted of sexual battery by a juvenile in Hamilton, Florida, in 2010 and served time at a juvenile facility, according to the Florida sex offender registry. He was later released, though the exact date is unclear.
There are multiple spellings of “Shikeem” used by police over the years, but in all cases his birthday and physical description match.
Bristol then came to Horry County, South Carolina, after his release.
In August 2016, an Horry County grand jury indicted Bristol on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct of a minor. Myrtle Beach and Horry County police both investigated allegations against Bristol. In one case, a witness said that in 2014 Bristol took a 7-year-old into a Food Lion bathroom and sexually assaulted the boy, according to court paperwork.
Bristol pleaded guilty using the Alford caveat — where a defendant does not admit guilt, but says there is enough for evidence for a conviction — to a count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
As that legal saga played out, Myrtle Beach police investigators learned of a second incident allegedly involving Bristol and young children. The newest claims also happened in 2014. Myrtle Beach police investigators had to wait to enter the warrant from those incidents to confirm details, department spokesman Cpl. Thomas Vest said in a statement.
But, a clerical error meant those warrants weren’t entered for years.
“We discovered that the warrants were not entered during a routine audit in early 2019 and entered them immediately,” Vest said.
Despite active arrest warrants at the time Bristol’s South Carolina prison release date arrived, he was released from prison on Feb. 28, 2020, to the custody of the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, SC Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain confirmed. Bristol only had a detainer on him so he could get an ankle monitor, Shain said.
If a person has active warrants, they typically appear when checked in the national crime database, referred to as NCIC.
“It is not SCDC policy to run NCIC checks on individuals before release, although it is practiced sometimes,” Shain noted.
However, if a law enforcement agency wants to hold a person, the department typically sends information to DOC, and “apparently that didn’t happen in this case,” she said.
As a result, Bristol left prison and had a registered address off Mr. Joe White Avenue in Myrtle Beach, according to his South Carolina sex offender registry.
Days later, on March 3, Myrtle Beach police arrested him on the outstanding warrants. He was then booked into J. Reuben Long Detention Center later that same day.
Bristol was held in jail until his release earlier this month, according to J. Reuben Long Detention Center records. Last week, the 15th Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office dropped charges without indictment against Bristol.
Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said Bristol wasn’t indicted because the newest charges were part of the same series of crimes Bristol already pleaded. Richardson compared it to a person charged with dozens of counts of possessing child pornography and then pleaded guilty. Then years into the prison sentence, police trying to add more counts when they find more images on the same computer.
The victims were aware, and on board, with the state’s decision, Richardson said.
“They did not want to go forward with new charges,” he said.
He continues to live in Myrtle Beach as he lists a Shavis Court address on his sex offender registry. The residence is off Robert Grissom Parkway. He is listed as a Tier 3 offender, which means he has to register for life and have a check of his registration every three months.
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 10:34 AM.
