Randal Benton convicted of killing his wife

ST. GEORGE -- Randal Benton told a jury he couldn't remember shooting his wife eight times or then driving 382 miles away. Now he has the rest of his life to consider the hours and miles he forgot.

A Dorchester County jury found Benton guilty of murder Thursday, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After hearing three days of testimony, the jury deliberated for about an hour and a half.

Benton, 48, killed his estranged wife, 36-year-old Treva Benton, in the parking lot of Perkins Family Restaurant on Trolley Road in Summerville on Oct. 30, 2010. He testified Thursday as the only witness for his defense and introduced a new set of characters and circumstances never mentioned previously in the case.

Benton last month attempted to enter a plea in the case that would have given him a 40-year sentence with no chance of parole. A judge rejected that arrangement after Benton said he didn't know if the facts of the case, as presented by the prosecutor, were correct.

A landscaper with an eighth-grade education, Benton said he separated from his wife six months before the shooting but that they remained in touch and sexually involved. He referred to her throughout his testimony as "my wife" and never called her by name.

Benton said he skipped out on plans to go to a gun range the day he killed Treva and instead helped her move. Benton testified that he wound up drinking at a bowling alley later that day, where he met a woman in the parking lot on the way out. She offered him a drink, and he accepted, but one of her brothers became angry that a married man was hitting on his sister.

Benton testified that someone threw an object at his head and that he fell to one knee and then fled in his truck. Disoriented from the strange drink and the hit to the head, he started driving home but wound up outside a house he previously shared with Treva, he said.

Benton testified that he parked his truck and walked from there to Treva's current home, where she agreed to drive him to his place. Once in her car, Benton asked Treva if she was having sex with a man she described as a new friend.

Benton began to sob as he testified that his wife told him that her relationship with the other man was none of his business. When he asked her, "Why? Why? I'm your husband," Treva slapped his head, Benton said.

"I was so mad. I was so hurt," he said. "I felt like I could explode."

Benton testified that he looked down and saw his hands shaking, and that was the last detail he could recall from that night. Asked by a prosecutor if he shot his wife, he answered, "Apparently so."

Assistant Solicitor Russell Hilton noted that Treva Benton suffered eight gunshot wounds, including two on her back.

"That's what malice is about," Hilton said. "That's the picture of malice."

Benton's defense attorney, John Loy, instead said his client still loves Treva Benton, that he simply reached his breaking point that night and acted on impulse.

Judge Stephanie McDonald said Benton showed little remorse on the witness stand. Before McDonald issued her sentence, Treva's ex-husband held up a photograph of Treva and their two sons.

"I know you've seen her at her worst," Scott Palmer said. "I'd like you to see her at her best."

He asked for Benton to spend life in prison.

Benton's mother, Margaret Stead, stood beside her son and hooked her left arm under his right before asking the judge for mercy. She said Benton was a good boy.

Then she turned to Treva Benton's oldest son Michael and said, "You know I love you, and I'm sorry."

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or on Twitter at @allysonjbird.