Insets, from left: Franklin Radell Smoak Jr. and Terrance Fields. Background: The vehicle Smoak shot up, killing Fields in Hampton County, S.C. (14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office).
A South Carolina man will spend three decades behind bars for killing a man after blasting a car that he thought carried the person responsible for his cousin’s death but actually had a group of guys out for a ride.
Franklin Radell Smoak Jr., 27, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder in the death of 32-year-old Terrance Fields in Hampton County, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said in a press release.
Smoak also was sentenced to 30 years in prison for two counts of attempted murder for shooting at two passengers in the car. The sentences will run concurrently.
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“These charges reflect the extreme danger posed by the defendants’ actions,” Reed Evans of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, who prosecuted the case, said in a statement. “This was a tragic case of mistaken identity, and it cost Terrance Fields his life. The attack on Highway 68 unleashed a rain of bullets on Fields’ car, killing him and gravely wounding another passenger.”
The defendant was driving on State Highway 68 on July 31, 2023, when he spotted a white sedan.
He thought the driver was the person responsible for killing his cousin, 18-year-old Kaleb Cave, about three months prior as the suspect had a similar car. Smoak turned off his headlights and crept up to the other car. He opened fire.
At least 14 shots hit the car. Fields was hit in the chest and died at the scene. His front-seat passenger was gravely wounded with a gunshot to the head, prosecutors said. A man in the back seat was not hit but witnessed the shooting.
But Fields had nothing to do with Smoak’s cousin’s death. He was simply out for a ride with his buddies who were on their way to a Love’s travel stop.
The press release did not say if anyone had been arrested in Cave’s homicide. It was unsolved as of July 2025.
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