A 45-year-old Lady’s Island man has been convicted of the 2016 shooting death of his girlfriend during a late-night argument inside his parked truck.
A Beaufort County jury found Jamie Jermaine Robinson guilty of voluntary manslaughter last week in the death of Eulia Moon shortly after midnight on Oct. 29, 2016. The conviction followed three days of testimony from 14 prosecution witnesses. Robinson was also convicted of possession of a weapon during commission of a violent crime.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Robinson and Moon, 47, had been dating for about two years at the time of her death. Relatives of both characterized the relationship as tumultuous and sometimes violent. Robinson told Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office investigators he had been drinking at an acquaintance’s house much of the day of his girlfriend’s death and possibly had cocaine and marijuana in his system, as well. He said Moon tracked him down and was angry about the friends with whom he was associating. They argued in his Chevrolet Avalanche, which was parked in the driveway of a home on Little Capers Road owned by Robinson’s mother. The couple also lived there, in a garage converted into an apartment. Robinson’s mother told investigators she was awakened sometime after midnight by the family’s barking dog. When she went to her front door to investigate the commotion, she saw her son, who was yelling and behaving erratically. He told her to call 911 because he had just shot Moon.
His mother made the call, then tended to Moon. Meanwhile, Robinson fled on foot down a dirt road and then into the woods between Little Capers and Sams Point roads. Along the way, he shed his shirt and shoes and tossed the weapon used to shoot Moon – a .25-caliber handgun.
Robinson ran to a cousin’s house nearby and called law enforcement and initially claimed a masked assailant robbed him and shot Moon. However, when Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office investigators told Robinson his story didn’t match crime-scene evidence, he eventually changed his story, claiming the gun discharged accidentally when Moon tried to wrest it from him as he held it to his own head.
Moon was taken to Beaufort Memorial Hospital and later to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston before she died of a gunshot wound to her head.
Robinson’s criminal record includes convictions for disorderly conduct, and felony and misdemeanor drug possession charges.
Circuit Court Judge Jennifer B. McCoy sentenced Robinson to 30 years for voluntary manslaughter – the maximum penalty for that offense – and five years for possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The sentences are to be served concurrently.
Smith is a member of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office Career Criminal Unit, which prosecutes the circuit’s most habitual and dangerous offenders. With Thursday’s conviction, the team has earned convictions against 309 of the 321 defendants it has prosecuted since its formation in 2008.
