South Carolina man gets life without parole for killing 5 while high on meth

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A man who authorities said was high on methamphetamine and hadn’t slept for days when he killed five people inside a home frequented by drug users was sentenced to life without parole Friday after pleading guilty to their murders.

James Douglas Drayton, 28, admitted to the October 2022 killings in Spartanburg County in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty, Solicitor Barry Barnette said in a statement.

Drayton said he would not appeal, and the life sentences for five counts of murder don’t allow him to be released on parole, Barnette said.

Prosecutors didn’t give a motive for the killings. Drayton told investigators he was high and hadn’t slept for four days when he killed everyone in the home where he was staying, authorities said. All five men were shot at close range and some were still asleep as Drayton pulled the trigger, Barnette said.

“Wouldn’t have mattered to me if they were church members and never did any of that stuff, or they were heroin addicts. They were still somebody’s son, brother, friend, dad,” former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said at the time. “They are all a child of God — they didn’t deserve what they got.”

Drayton was arrested the next day after leading police on a chase in Burke County, Georgia, about 145 miles (233 kilometers) away from the Spartanburg County home. He was driving one of the victim’s cars and had the gun used in the deaths, authorities said.

Family members of the victims supported the plea deal and life sentence, and told Drayton in court how he ruined many lives, prosecutors said.

The five men killed were Thomas Wayne Ellis Anderson, 37; James Derrick Baldwin, 49; Mark Allan Hewitt, 59; Adam Daniel Morley, 32; and Roman Christean Megael Rocha, 19, prosecutors said.