A South Carolina man who shot at a police officer four times before killing a woman has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.
David Beaufort received the sentence after a jury found him guilty of murder, attempted murder and a weapons possession charge, according to the Ninth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, which did not identify the victim in its Monday, Nov. 10, press release.
Prosecutors said that in the early hours of Dec. 16, 2021, Beaufort and the woman recorded a video of themselves having consensual sex at a home in North Charleston, S.C. Minutes after the recording ended, the woman called 911, telling a dispatcher she believed Beaufort was overdosing.
The call disconnected when Beaufort could be heard asking her to call his mother, according to prosecutors.
When first responders arrived, body camera footage captured the sound of the woman screaming in fear as they entered the residence.
Beaufort then fired four shots at responding police officer Jamie Sylvester, the solicitor’s office said, before fatally shooting the woman.
Prosecutors said Beaufort later told EMTs that he had been drinking Everclear and smoking marijuana laced with cocaine.
Beaufort initially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but doctors determined that he had the “mental capacity to distinguish moral and legal right from moral and legal wrong,” according to prosecutors.
He later claimed he acted in self-defense, but after a nearly four-day trial that began on Monday, Nov. 3, the jury convicted him of murder.
“[Recently] we had three trials that ended in convictions, all of which involved violence against women,” Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson said in a statement. “Brave officers like Jamie Sylvester also suffer at the hands of these batterers. Thankfully, Officer Sylvester survived but this madness must stop.”
