A Berkeley County jury convicted Joshua Scott-Lee Butler of murder and two firearm offenses while acquitting him of second-degree domestic violence.

GOOSE CREEK, S.C. — Joshua Scott-Lee Butler was sentenced to 45 years in prison after a Berkeley County jury found him guilty of murdering 53-year-old Earl Goodwater, who prosecutors said intervened when Butler’s then-fiancée sought help during a family confrontation in 2023.

Circuit Court Judge Courtney Clyburn-Pope imposed the 45-year term for murder and two five-year sentences for pointing and presenting a firearm at a person and possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The shorter terms will run at the same time as the murder sentence. The jury’s verdict resolved a case that began with a lesser manslaughter charge after the May 13, 2023, shooting and later moved forward as a murder prosecution. Jurors also found Butler not guilty of second-degree domestic violence, even though prosecutors presented testimony that he had struck his fiancée before Goodwater stepped in.

The case turned on a sequence of choices that prosecutors emphasized at trial: an argument at an earlier family gathering, a confrontation in the driveway of the Goodwater home, a fight between Butler and Goodwater, a break in that fight, Butler’s decision to go to his vehicle for a handgun, and his return toward the house. Assistant Solicitor Michelle Hart described those events as a chain that ended with Goodwater’s death. The sentencing therefore closed not only a homicide prosecution but also a case in which the state asked jurors to distinguish between a sudden struggle and a killing committed after Butler had time to disengage, arm himself and re-enter the confrontation.

Trial testimony described the dispute as beginning before Butler and his then-fiancée reached her parents’ home in the St. James Estates neighborhood. The couple had been at another family gathering, and their argument continued when they arrived on Westminster Boulevard around 10 p.m. Prosecutors said Butler struck the woman in the face in the driveway, causing swelling and a cut inside her mouth. The incident happened in front of one of the couple’s young children, according to the prosecution. The woman then went into her parents’ house to retrieve the couple’s 1-year-old child and called out to her father for help.

Goodwater responded inside the home and told his daughter to leave Butler alone, according to testimony summarized by prosecutors. A physical altercation between the two men followed and moved outside into the front yard. Relatives tried to separate them. That separation became an important part of the prosecution’s account because it created a point at which Butler was no longer locked in the fight. Rather than leave, prosecutors said, Butler went to his vehicle and retrieved a 9 mm handgun. The state used that action to argue that the fatal encounter was not simply an uninterrupted struggle that suddenly produced a gunshot.

Another witness became part of the confrontation after Butler returned with the weapon. Trial accounts said Butler pointed the gun at that person, who raised his hands and told Butler, “I’m not afraid to die.” Prosecutors said the witness was trying to draw Butler’s attention away from Goodwater, his daughter, and women and children who were outside. Butler then moved past that witness and went back toward Goodwater near the front porch. The jury separately convicted Butler of pointing and presenting a firearm at a person, the offense connected to that part of the encounter. Under South Carolina law, that offense is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

The final struggle happened near the porch. Prosecutors said Butler put Goodwater in a headlock while still holding the handgun. One shot was fired, striking Goodwater in the face. Authorities said the wound was fatal and that Goodwater likely died immediately. The reporting available from the trial does not establish every movement made by each man in the seconds before the gun discharged, but the jury accepted the state’s murder case after hearing the evidence. South Carolina law defines murder as a killing committed with malice aforethought, and the state’s current sentencing law provides a mandatory minimum term of 30 years up to life for a murder conviction when a death sentence is not imposed.

Butler left the scene with his 4-year-old daughter after the shooting, according to prosecutors and earlier law-enforcement reports. Berkeley County sheriff’s deputies arrested him after he returned a short time later. The earliest public account, released while the investigation was still fresh, said deputies had been sent to Westminster Boulevard around 10:30 p.m. after a report of a dispute and were told while responding that someone had been shot. The Berkeley County Coroner’s Office identified Goodwater, 53, and said he died at the scene. Initial reports also said Butler suffered a gunshot wound to the arm during the confrontation.

The case changed significantly after that first arrest. Authorities initially charged Butler with voluntary manslaughter and second-degree domestic violence. Later reporting from the completed prosecution said the homicide charge was elevated and presented as murder as more evidence was developed. That progression matters because it shows how the state’s theory evolved from the preliminary account of a fatal struggle to an accusation that Butler acted with the malice required for murder. The eventual jury verdict also showed that the panel did not simply accept every charge filed by prosecutors: It convicted Butler on murder and the two firearm counts but acquitted him on the domestic-violence count.

Goodwater’s death left a large family behind. His obituary identified him as Earl David Goodwater, a husband, father of six and grandfather. It said he worked as a crane operator with the South Carolina Ports Authority. He was remembered at a celebration of life one week after his death, followed by burial at Mt. Pleasant Memorial Gardens. Those details give the case a dimension not captured by the criminal counts alone. The man at the center of the homicide case was not just the person identified by investigators as the victim; he was a working father and grandfather whose intervention that night, prosecutors said, began after his daughter called for help.

Hart focused on that family role when the case ended. “Earl Goodwater did what any good father would do: he stepped up to protect his daughter and grandchildren,” she said in a statement after the verdict and sentencing. Hart said Butler had already assaulted Goodwater’s daughter and had already been pulled away from Goodwater before going to the car, getting a gun and returning. Her statement framed the prosecution’s theory around decisions made after opportunities to stop the confrontation, rather than around the final shot alone. The jury’s murder verdict and the judge’s sentence reflected the legal consequences of that sequence as the state presented it.

The 45-year sentence is longer than South Carolina’s 30-year mandatory minimum for murder. The two additional five-year sentences were ordered to run concurrently, so they do not extend Butler’s announced 45-year prison term. State law permits a five-year sentence for possession of a firearm during a violent crime to run either consecutively or concurrently, while pointing a firearm at another person carries a maximum five-year prison term. The sentencing order reported by local news outlets placed all three terms together, leaving the murder sentence as the controlling period of incarceration.

With the sentence imposed, the central trial-stage questions in the case have been resolved: Butler stands convicted of murder and the two firearm offenses and acquitted of second-degree domestic violence. The public reports reviewed for this story did not identify a pending post-trial motion or appeal date. Any future appellate action would be reflected in court proceedings, but as of the latest verified reporting, the operative judgment is the 45-year sentence imposed by Clyburn-Pope for Goodwater’s killing.

Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.