‘I didn’t mean any hate’: Man pleads guilty in S.C. cross burning
HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - A man is itting to his role in a cross-burning in the Conway area that left a Black couple scarred.
Worden Butler pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment on Wednesday. The charge stems from the November 2023 cross-burning on Corbett Drive that made national headlines.
With the plea, Butler is itting to lighting a cross to intimidate his Black neighbors, Shawn and Monica Williams, after a property line disagreement.
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Judge William Hutson sentenced Butler to time served.
“No time, nowhere what have you done will it ever be acceptable,” Hutson told Butler. “This will follow you.”
After the ruling, Butler spoke with WMBF News for the first time.
“I didn’t mean any hate towards my community, only trying to bring light to the matter that I’m an individual with disability and I have seizures and has not been rectified by the court or the state in the matter, and I made multiple complaints... the only thing I got from the FBI that we are too busy in the matter.”
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Butler then continued to speak on the issues he said he deals with.
“So, for anybody who deals with seizures, deals with mental disability, and feels like nobody is there to help you, this is what happens,” Butler said. “You get a guilty plea because they are not willing to provide the evidence to prove anything.”
Horry County police also charged Butler’s girlfriend, Alexis Hartnett, with the cross-burning, but her case is still pending.
The case sparked calls for South Carolina to a state-wide hate crime law.
While some counties and municipalities have ed their own laws, South Carolina remains one of two states without a state-wide hate crime law on the books.
The cross-burning also led to other battles in court, with Worden and Hartnett being banned from the Corbett Drive house through a temporary injunction.
A judge did rule that Worden’s mother, Janet Butler, who owns the home that the couple lived in, can once again enter the home.
The NAA and the FBI have also launched investigations into the cross-burning.
The agency did not arrest or charge the couple, but documents later revealed agents took a charred piece of wood wrapped in cloth from the home as well as a crossbow, pellet gun and several phones.
However, nothing considered to be illegal was found on the property.
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