Man faces trial for murder, arson and burglary in Berkeley County in 2022

Berkeley County, SC (WCSC) – A jury of peers will decide whether or not a man is guilty of murdering a woman after she was found stabbed to death in her Pineville home, which was also on fire, in 2022.

Shelton Brown is accused of murder, burglary and arson in the case of 86-year-old Essie Benekin. Benekin's family sat behind the prosecutors in the courtroom all week, hoping for justice.

Attorneys concluded several days of testimony with a forensic pathologist describing more than 130 “sharp force traumas” to the victim. The judge warned the courtroom about the nature of the testimony before the expert described the wounds. The injuries ranged from stab wounds to lacerations to Benekin's face, neck, chest, arms and legs.

The expert testified that the fatal find was a stab wound 4 inches deep from one side of Benekin's jaw to the other. The MUSC doctor testified as an expert in her field of forensic pathology and said she suspects many of the wounds were made with a serrated knife.

The State also mentioned that defendant Brown's blood was all over the woman's house. It was on a shirt found in her house, and there is a photo of Brown on the shirt from the same day of the crime. The State's witnesses said that one of the two knives at the crime scene had the defendant's and the victim's blood on the handle. Witnesses said that both knives had the victim's blood on the blade.

The defense called only one witness. An officer assigned to the case testified that he tried to pull Google location information for Brown's devices at the time of the murder but found nothing. That Google GPS data search was separate from the phone records investigators later obtained from AT&T.

The jury heard four days of testimony, mostly from the prosecution, and has a table full of evidence in the jury room to review. Brown chose not to testify, as is his right. The trial will begin with closing arguments, followed by deliberations Friday morning.

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