GUILTY SC - Three women killed in Clarendon & Charleston Counties, May 2013

[JusticeWillBeServed]

New Zion man gets two life sentences for murders of cousin, recycling center employee - September 2016

A 34-year-old New Zion man charged in summer 2013 in two counties for the deaths of three women will spend the rest of his life in prison, according to court records.

The Clarendon County Public Court Index shows that Jeffery Eady, formerly of 1054 527 Subdivision Road in New Zion, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of murder and one count each of armed robbery; grand larceny of a value of $10,000 or more; possession of a weapon during a violent crime; and financial transaction card fraud of a value of $500 or less in six months.

Through his plea on Sept. 19, Eady avoided the death penalty in Clarendon County. He also avoided two separate trials for the killings of Maybell White and Sadie Brown. The latter was his second cousin, according to reports.

Man who received life sentences for Clarendon slayings pleads in Charleston shooting death

Jeffrey Eady, 34, pleaded guilty but mentally ill Thursday (June 22nd) to murder in Charleston County General Sessions Court, a move The Post and Courier of Charleston reported will send him to prison for a lifetime but allow him to avoid the death penalty prosecutors there had considered pursuing.

Eady at first drove past an Adams Run business in Charleston County in 2013, but that voices in his head told him to go back and commit more mayhem. He was fleeing south to Savannah, according to his public defender, when he walked into the D&V Convenience Store and fatally shot Crystal Johnson, the 37-year-old mother of three and Eady’s third and final victim.

In pleading guilty, triple murderer says he's 'truly sorry' for Charleston County slaying and calls for better treatment of mentally ill

The ordeal could be a teaching moment that calls on officials to examine shortcomings in treating people struggling with mental illness, said Eady, his lawyers and a judge.

He had tried to get treatment from the state in 2012 after serving a lengthy prison sentence for armed robbery, but it never happened. Then the voices were telling him to attack his roommate. But a lot of people, he said, just told him, "You're crazy," and looked the other way.

Eady got as close as the parking lot of one treatment center, he said, but with no one to force him to go inside he walked away.

But his condition was no excuse for what he did, he added during a Charleston court hearing.

Sadie Brown

Crystal Johnson

Maybell White