A former Lake Marion High School 10th grader will spend the next 35 years behind bars because of what he says was his association with the wrong crowd.
Kentrell Treville Liburd, 17, entered guilty pleas to voluntary manslaughter and armed robbery Tuesday in connection with two separate robberies. He said he wished he could turn back time to change the wrongs.
“I was part of something I shouldn’t have been part of,” the Santee youth said. “I ain’t always smart, but I ain’t no dummy. I was hanging with the wrong crowd.”
Circuit Judge Ed Dickson accepted a negotiated sentence of 25 years for voluntary manslaughter for a fatal robbery attempt and added another 10 years consecutive for an earlier armed robbery of two golfers at a Santee course.
“Mr. Liburd, I wish I had the power to turn back time, I do,” Dickson said.
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The Boo Circle youth was one of three teens arrested after the Feb. 16, 2012 burglary and fatal shooting of a Hispanic man at his Hollis Drive residence in Santee.
Authorities said Antonio Surita died of a single gunshot wound as a result of the break-in.
Charges are still pending against Gregory Kadeem Foye, 19, and Quinnshaun Larnel Fogle, 17.
Warrants against the trio accuse them of going to Surita’s camper and shooting him at least once in the chest.
Prosecutor Harrison Bell told the court the motive behind the burglary was robbery. Bell said when Liburd and two cohorts broke into the camper, Surita struggled with his assailants. A weapon carried by one of the intruders went off, striking Surita in the chest.
“It just got out of hand from there, Your Honor,” Bell said.
Two men in a manufactured home next door told investigators they heard the commotion next door before being forced from their own home. They said the trio demanded to know where the now-deceased victim hid his money.
The killers then made off with about $200, authorities said.
Liburd’s armed robbery charge came as a result of the December 2011 robbery of two golfers at Santee National Golf Course.
Bell said Liburd and an accomplice approached the two men demanding their money and yelling racial epithets while threatening to shoot them.
Attorney and Orangeburg Master-in-Equity Jay Jackson represented the two golfers, who were not present. Jackson said one of the men was 77 at the time and was knocked to the ground during the assault.
“They were very traumatized,” he said.
Still, both men were in agreement with the sentence, he said.
Defense attorney Peggy Hinds said Liburd "knows he has made some very, very bad mistakes. I believe that Kentrell wishes he could go back. But he’s here taking responsibility for his part.”
Liburd told the court his grandmother and mother tried to make a difference in his life, to give him positive instruction. He says he wishes he had listened. If he had, he said, he would be in school and playing sports.
“I chose my own decisions,” he said.
Contact the writer: rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5516.
