A South Carolina man was sentenced to life in prison for killing a mail carrier who didn’t deliver two pounds of marijuana, instead leaving a note to go to a post office to pick it up.
Trevor Raekwon Seward, 25, was previously convicted of murdering 64-year-old mail carrier Irene Pressley in Williamsburg County in 2019, the Associated Press reported.
Seward had expected to find two pounds of marijuana in his mailbox that day – a shipment he had ordered from California. Instead, he found a note inside that told him to go to a post office to pick up the package. Seward confronted Pressley about the note, demanding she hand over his package. Pressley refused, and Seward returned to his home to grab a rifle and wait for Pressley down another street.
He fired 20 shots into the back of her mail truck, according to prosecutors. Some of the bullets struck Pressley.
Seward then took control of the mail truck and drove it into a ditch on an access road near a hunting club. He then searched the truck for his package and anything else that might be valuable before leaving the truck and Pressley’s body.
The package of marijuana was later found on the street where Seward had shot Pressley.
Before he was sentenced, Pressley’s sister told the court that Seward was to blame for her 97-year-old father’s death.
“This affected my family. Actually, took the life of my dad. He gave up. Because you took his daughter’s life,” Elisha Hubbard told the court, according to WPDE-TV. Hubbard also condemned Seward specifically.
“You were supposed to walk the earth and do something positive to help others. He didn’t make you an animal to be caged up. You didn’t have to take my sister’s life,” she said.
Nine family members, friends, and coworkers of Pressley spoke at Seward’s sentencing hearing.
“What did it profit you to take her life? It didn’t profit you nothing. Why did you take my sister’s life? She was innocent. She was innocent,” said Vernelle Gibson Oates, another sister of Pressley.
Seward reportedly listened as family members spoke and was asked if he wanted to say anything. Seward declined, saying he didn’t “want to cause any more confusion. I don’t have anything to say,” WPDE reported.
Judge Donald C. Coggins, Jr. then addressed Seward.
“Although, you are, in all likelihood, are going to spend your life in federal prison. And how you spend your life is the choice of your making,” he said, according to the news outlet.
Seward had help finding Pressley after he got his gun. Jerome Terrell Davis, 30, pleaded guilty to his role in Pressley’s death. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for helping to rob Pressley and for a marijuana conspiracy conviction.
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