HAMPTON, SC (March 1, 2022) – A Hampton County man is heading to prison following an argument in a front yard that left another man dead.
Faizon Syheen Speed, 19, pleaded guilty Monday in Hampton County General Sessions Court to voluntary manslaughter and possession of a weapon during a violent crime in the May 3, 2020, shooting death of 37-year-old Robert Lee Haynes, Jr.
Speed’s jury trial was scheduled to being later in the day.
Speed of Varnville was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He received 12 years for the voluntary manslaughter and five years on the weapon charge. Both are to run concurrently.
“Mr. Speed was armed and was looking for a confrontation,” said 14th Circuit Deputy Solicitor Sean Thornton, who prosecuted the case. “He settled a score by repeatedly firing his gun and striking the victim.”
The day of the shooting, Haynes drove to his girlfriend’s house on Curly Road in Varnville.
There, he found Speed and his girlfriend’s son in the front yard. An argument between Speed and Haynes erupted and ended with Speed firing multiple rounds. Haynes was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital but later died.
Circuit Court Judge Bonds handed down Monday’s sentence.
Thornton leads the Career Criminal Unit, which prosecutes the circuit’s most violent and habitual offenders. The team has earned convictions against 409 of the 428 defendants it has prosecuted since its inception in 2009.
