What began as a 2023 voluntary manslaughter case ended more than three years later with Joshua Scott-Lee Butler receiving 45 years for murder.
GOOSE CREEK, S.C. — Deputies first arrested Joshua Scott-Lee Butler on a voluntary manslaughter charge after Earl Goodwater was shot to death outside a Goose Creek home in May 2023. By September 2026, a jury had convicted Butler of murder and a judge had sentenced him to 45 years in prison.
The distance between those two points tells much of the case. Early law-enforcement reports described a family dispute, Goodwater’s intervention and a struggle involving a handgun. The final trial record added a more detailed sequence: an argument involving Butler and his then-fiancée, her call for help from her father, a fight that relatives broke apart, Butler’s trip to a vehicle to retrieve a handgun, his act of pointing it at another witness and his return to Goodwater before the fatal shot. Prosecutors used that fuller timeline to argue for murder rather than a lesser homicide offense, and the Berkeley County jury accepted that charge while acquitting Butler of second-degree domestic violence.
The first public account came from the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office in the days after the May 13, 2023, shooting. Deputies were dispatched to the 100 block of Westminster Boulevard shortly before 10:30 p.m. after a woman reported a family argument. While they were on the way, the call was updated to say a man had been shot. Deputies found Goodwater wounded, and the Berkeley County Coroner’s Office said the 53-year-old died at the scene. Investigators initially said Goodwater had intervened in an altercation involving his daughter and Butler and that a fight followed.
Those early reports also said Butler went to a vehicle, retrieved a handgun and continued the confrontation. Goodwater was fatally shot during a struggle over the weapon, while Butler suffered a gunshot wound to the arm, according to the sheriff’s office account reported at the time. Butler left the scene but returned later. He was arrested and charged with voluntary manslaughter and second-degree domestic violence. The sheriff’s office said other charges were possible, signaling that the first booking did not necessarily represent the final shape of the prosecution.
By the 2026 trial, testimony supplied details that had not been part of the earliest public narrative. Butler and his then-fiancée had been arguing at another family gathering before they drove to her parents’ home in the St. James Estates neighborhood, according to prosecutors. They arrived around 10 p.m. The state said Butler struck the woman in the face in the driveway, causing swelling and a cut inside her mouth, with one of their children present. Jurors ultimately acquitted Butler of the second-degree domestic-violence charge, so the alleged assault must be distinguished from the crimes on which he was convicted.
Inside the house, the couple was there to retrieve their 1-year-old child. Butler’s fiancée called for her father. Goodwater told her to leave Butler alone, and a physical confrontation between the two men followed, according to testimony. The fight moved outside. Family members intervened and pulled the men apart. That break became one of the prosecution’s most important factual points because it separated the original fight from Butler’s next action. He went to his vehicle and retrieved a 9 mm handgun, prosecutors said, rather than leaving after relatives had created distance between him and Goodwater.
The handgun first figured in a confrontation with someone other than Goodwater. A witness testified that Butler pointed the weapon at his stomach. The witness raised his hands and said, “I’m not afraid to die,” which prosecutors said was meant to divert Butler’s attention from Goodwater, his daughter, and other women and children nearby. Butler moved past the witness and headed back toward Goodwater near the front porch. That episode became the basis for a separate conviction for pointing and presenting a firearm at a person, an offense South Carolina law classifies as a felony punishable by up to five years.
The final encounter happened near the porch. Prosecutors said Butler put Goodwater in a headlock while holding the gun. One shot was fired, striking Goodwater in the face. Authorities said the wound was fatal and likely killed him immediately. Butler then left with his 4-year-old daughter and was arrested after he came back to the scene a short time later. At trial, the state urged jurors to view the fatal shooting in the context of the decisions that preceded it, especially Butler’s move to arm himself after the first fight had been interrupted.
That theory marked the sharpest difference between the preliminary case and the one ultimately presented to jurors. South Carolina defines murder as a killing committed with malice aforethought, while the initial voluntary manslaughter charge reflected a less serious homicide accusation. Public reporting does not provide every charging document or explain each prosecutorial decision in detail, so it would go beyond the record to say exactly when or why every legal change was made. What is verified is that Butler was first arrested on voluntary manslaughter and later tried and convicted of murder after more evidence had been developed.
The jury also convicted Butler of possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Circuit Court Judge Courtney Clyburn-Pope sentenced him to 45 years for murder and five years for each of the two firearm offenses. She ordered the shorter terms to run concurrently, meaning at the same time as the murder sentence. South Carolina law sets a mandatory minimum of 30 years for murder, with a possible sentence up to life when the death penalty is not imposed. State law also provides a five-year term for possessing a firearm during a violent crime and allows a judge to make that term concurrent or consecutive.
The person whose death drove the case had a life outside the courtroom record. Earl David Goodwater was a husband, a father of six and a grandfather, according to his obituary. He worked as a crane operator for the South Carolina Ports Authority. His family held a celebration of life at Olive Branch A.M.E. Church on May 20, 2023, followed by burial at Mt. Pleasant Memorial Gardens. Those details emerged from family notices rather than the criminal prosecution, but they help explain why prosecutors repeatedly described his intervention in terms of his role as a father responding to a daughter who had called for him.
Assistant Solicitor Michelle Hart said after the conviction that Goodwater “stepped up to protect his daughter and grandchildren.” She described the case as a series of decisions by Butler, emphasizing that he had already been pulled away from Goodwater before going to the car and getting a weapon. The prosecution’s closing public explanation therefore looked backward across the entire chain of events rather than treating the shooting as an isolated instant. The murder verdict shows that jurors were persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt on the homicide charge, even as their domestic-violence acquittal showed they did not accept every accusation submitted to them.
The case now stands in a markedly different place from where it began on the morning after the shooting. Butler’s original manslaughter arrest has been superseded by a murder conviction, and the weapons conduct described in the later trial produced two additional felony convictions. His controlling sentence is 45 years because the two five-year terms run concurrently. The latest verified reporting reviewed for this story did not identify a scheduled appellate hearing or other pending proceeding, leaving the 2026 judgment as the current legal status of the case.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.