Background: Devan Raper in court for the murder of Trey Wright (WBTW/YouTube). Insets, clockwise from top right: Trey Wright, Sydney Kearns, Hunter Kendall, Corrine Belviso, and Gianna Kistenmacher (GoFundMe/Fulton County Sheriff’s Office).
Nine teenagers in South Carolina are facing criminal charges for allegedly teaming up to go after another teen “over a female” — with one of the youths gunning down a 16-year-old boy — after luring him to a location with help from the victim’s girlfriend and other suspects, one of whom recorded everything on video, cops say.
“It’s kind of hard to deny what we see … with our eyes,” said Maj. Mike Nunn, of the Florence County Sheriff’s Office, in an interview with local CBS affiliate WBTW. “And what’s posted on social media, audio, video, those types of things,” he said.
Devan Raper, 19, is accused of carrying out the alleged shooting attack on June 24 in Johnsonville — allegedly pumping bullets into local resident and fellow teen Trey Wright that night before leaving him on First Neck Road, according to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office. Wright’s own girlfriend, Gianna Kistenmacher, 17, allegedly helped lure the teen to the kill location where Raper shot him, cops say.
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Seven others have now been charged in connection to the incident, with four posting bond last week. Raper and one other defendant are still behind bars without bond. Kistenmacher’s charges have been upgraded from accessory before the fact of a felony to murder.
“My baby never deserved not one thing that happened to him, period,” Wright’s mother, Ashley Lindsey, told WBTW after the teens were charged. “He was one in a million. He was good for people’s souls. His happiness was so contagious. He always spread joy and he was one of the most kind-hearted kids you’d ever meet,” Lindsey said.
Police say Raper showed up to meet Wright that Tuesday night and got into a “verbal altercation” with him before the shooting occurred. The other defendants allegedly helped coordinate everything and were “complicit in bringing the armed codefendant, Raper, to the incident location and knowing that there would be a confrontation,” per Nunn.
“They knew that Raper had presented a firearm to the victim and made threats to shoot him,” Nunn added.
Deputies found Wright “laying in the roadway” with multiple gunshot wounds at around 11:30 p.m., the sheriff’s office said in a press release. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
“This was an altercation between two people,” Sheriff TJ Joye told local CBS affiliate WBTW last month after Raper and Kistenmacher were arrested. “They had issues with each other and it was over a female,” Joye said. “The sad thing is, you got a 16-year-old that lost his life. You’ve got a 19-year-old who is going to be in jail the rest of his life. Over what?”
Police say three of the others who have been charged — Sydney Kearns, 17; Corrinne Belviso and Hunter Kendall, both 18 — allegedly helped Raper by bringing him to meet Wright knowing he had a loaded firearm and wanted to kill him, cops say. At least one of them recorded the incident, but officials have not said who.
“A lot of times the people involved record the event,” Nunn said. “So that takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.”
Online court records show at least four of the defendants were released last week after posting bond, including Belviso and Kearns. Raper is being held at the Florence County Detention Center. Kistenmacher is out on bond as she awaits a bond hearing.
Wright, who was a high school student in Florence School District 5, was described as a “kind soul who touched so many lives,” according to a GoFundMe.
A friend of Wright’s, Ethan Kirby, told WBTW that Wright and Raper had hung out in the past and were allegedly pals.
“It’s an unreal act that we never thought could happen to Trey,” Kirby said. “Honestly, I’m in disbelief at what’s happened right now.”
