A Greenville County judge sentenced Gabrielle Benites to seven years in prison this week for her role in the August 2023 death of Easley Police Officer Matthew Hare. Hare was struck by an Amtrak train as he tried to get Benites off the tracks.
In an account of the case, FOX Carolina News reported that prosecutors said Benites left home during the night after leaving her fiancé a note indicating she was suicidal. Her fiancé called law enforcement, and Officer Taylor Pierce found Benites on tracks behind a restaurant. Prosecutors said Pierce and Hare urged her to get off the tracks and that she fought officers as they tried to move her to safety. Officers got her off the tracks, but Hare was struck by the train.
Hare was 22 and had graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in March 2023, just months before his death, according to ABC News 4 and WHNS (via Gray News). The Easley Police Department told WECT it received the call for assistance on the tracks along East Main Street around 5 a.m. Hare was pronounced dead at the scene, according to KOTA-TV (WHNS/Gray News).
Charge and Sentencing Timeline
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division charged Benites with aggravated breach of peace on Aug. 3, 2023, a day after Hare's death. According to the arrest warrant obtained by the Easley Progress, Benites was intoxicated, lay across active railroad tracks and resisted officers' efforts to remove her. A magistrate granted her a $30,000 surety bond, ABC News 4 reported.
Benites pleaded guilty in Pickens County in July to breach of peace of an aggravated nature. FOX Carolina reported that the prosecution and defense had agreed to the seven-year sentence, which the judge accepted after describing the case as a tragedy.
Mental Health Evidence Presented in Court
At sentencing, Benites's attorney said she had experienced mental health issues throughout her life, had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and was seeking help, including through an emergency-room visit on the day of the incident, according to FOX Carolina's courtroom report. Her therapist, who began treating her in September 2025, testified that she could not speak to Benites's mental state on the morning of the 2023 incident.
FOX Carolina reported that Easley Police Chief Brandon Liner asked the judge to impose the agreed sentence. In a victim impact statement, Hare's mother, Ashley Hare, described her son as her firstborn and best friend.
Risks Around Railroad Tracks
Hare died while responding to a call for help on the tracks. Railroad tracks have also been the setting for rescue attempts elsewhere: WWNY-TV reported that an off-duty California deputy ran in front of a train to rescue a child.
What the Available Data Show
The available figures are historical and national, rather than a measure of how common railroad-trespassing deaths are in South Carolina. SouthCoastToday, citing preliminary Federal Railroad Administration data, reported that 486 people nationwide were killed after trespassing on railroad lines in 2007, compared with 518 in 2006. Those figures do not establish a current trend or provide a statewide count.
What the data and crisis services show
The figures above are historical, not the latest Federal Railroad Administration totals, and do not establish a current trend. They concern deaths after trespassing on railroad lines, rather than providing a current count of crashes at grade crossings. According to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, its Mobile Crisis service provides community-based crisis response anywhere in the state, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Anyone experiencing a mental health crisis can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In Upstate South Carolina, the state Department of Mental Health's mobile crisis line can be reached at 833-364-2274.
