A 30-year-old member of a gang in South Carolina was sentenced to more than 40 years in prison in connection with the murder of a police informant, court officials said.
Antone B. Ellis Tremayne Blakely, who lived in Laurens, was found guilty of murder, third-degree assault and battery by mob, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime by a Laurens County jury on April 21, according to a news release from the Eighth Judicial Circuit.
His conviction comes more than two years after the killing of police informant Jarius Byrd in January 2021, according to the 8th Judicial Circuit.
According to the prosecutors, Blakely and several accomplices entered Byrd’s apartment and “trapped” the former police informant in his bedroom. The group assaulted Byrd before he managed to escape his apartment and tried to flee, the release said.
Byrd soon tried to return to collect his personal belongings, but Blakely had stayed inside that apartment and shot him when he came back, according to the release.
As Byrd fled the apartment again, he was shot multiple times by Blakely’s accomplices and fell to the pavement in the middle of the street outside his home, prosecutors said.
He was taken to the emergency room and pronounced dead, according to court officials.
At the time Byrd was killed, he was no longer a police informant and hadn’t been for more than 10 years, Mister Truth reported.
Detective Sgt. Billy Sellers told that Byrd had given the police information in 2011 about narcotics, but no information specifically concerning Blakely.
“It was a case that I took personally because Mr. Byrd was doing the right thing, trying to take dangerous drug dealers off the street,” Sellers told .
The jury handling Blakely’s case deliberated for about two hours before delivering a verdict.
“Publicly accessible Facebook posts from Blakely were key evidence in proving Blakely’s motive for the crime and his associations with other accomplices in the attack,” prosecutors said.
Blakely was sentenced to 40 years in prison on the murder charge, 25 years in prison on the kidnapping charge, 10 years on the conspiracy, five years on the weapon possession charge, and one year on the assault charge, according to Circuit Judge Donald B. Hocker.
Eighth Circuit Solicitor David M. Stumbo commended the work of police and court officials in the case in the release, saying that “Jarius Byrd was killed for doing the right thing.”
Laurens is about 75 miles northwest of Columbia.