A Berkeley County jury has convicted a Goose Creek man of murder for fatally shooting his fiancée's father in the family's front yard during a 2023 domestic dispute, and a circuit court judge has now sentenced him to 45 years in prison. Joshua Scott-Lee Butler was found guilty of murder, possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, and pointing and presenting a firearm at a person, following an altercation that began inside the home of Earl Goodwater and spilled outside before Butler opened fire.
According to WCIV, Butler and his fiancée arrived at her parents' home around 10 p.m. on May 13, 2023. After entering the home to retrieve their child, his fiancée called her father for help. Prosecutors say Butler had already struck his fiancée in the face, causing swelling and a cut inside her mouth, in an assault that happened in front of the couple's young daughter. When Goodwater told his daughter to leave that boy alone, the confrontation escalated: Butler retrieved a 9mm handgun, put Goodwater in a headlock while holding the loaded weapon, and pointed the firearm at another witness, who told him, “I'm not afraid to die.”
The struggle moved from inside the residence to the front yard of the Goodwater family home in the St. James Estates neighborhood, on the 100 block of Westminster Boulevard, according to the Post and Courier. Berkeley County Sheriff's deputies determined that a physical struggle over the handgun left Goodwater fatally wounded and Butler with a gunshot wound to his own arm. A single shot struck Goodwater in the right cheek below the cheekbone, and his death was likely instantaneous, the outlet reported. Butler then fled the scene with his 4-year-old daughter before deputies arrested him a short time later when he returned.
A Father Who Stepped in to Protect His Family
Earl David Goodwater was 53 years old, a crane operator with the South Carolina Ports Authority, and a married father of six children and grandfather to seven, per his obituary details reflected in the case record. Assistant Solicitor Michelle Hart, who prosecuted the case for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Solicitor's Office, said in a statement that Goodwater stepped up to protect his daughter and grandchildren. Hart said Butler had already assaulted Goodwater's daughter, then chose to arm himself and return to the house rather than walk away.
“His choice ended a father's life in front of his family,” Hart said in her statement announcing the verdict and sentence. The case was initially charged as voluntary manslaughter and domestic violence by the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office, but a grand jury later returned a murder indictment after investigators and prosecutors sought to establish that Butler acted with malice rather than in the heat of passion. Under South Carolina criminal law, murder requires proof of malice aforethought, which can form in an instant, while voluntary manslaughter applies only to killings committed under sudden provocation without malice, according to the Law Office of Jonathan Lewis. A jury ultimately found Butler not guilty of second-degree domestic violence but convicted him of murder along with the weapons charges.
Sentencing and the Weight of a 45-Year Term
Circuit Court Judge Courtney Clyburn-Pope, who presided over the case in Berkeley County General Sessions Court, sentenced Butler to 45 years in prison for murder, along with concurrent five-year sentences for possession of a weapon during a violent crime and for pointing and presenting a firearm at a person. Clyburn-Pope was sworn onto the Second Judicial Circuit bench in 2019 as Aiken County's first resident circuit judge in nearly 80 years, as the Post and Courier reported at the time.
Butler's sentence falls within the statutory range for murder under South Carolina Code § 16-3-20, which mandates a minimum of 30 years up to life imprisonment. The case materials provided do not specify Butler's parole eligibility, early-release status, or sentence-reducing credits. The cited provision sets the murder sentencing range at 30 years to life imprisonment.
Part of a Broader Pattern in South Carolina
The shooting reflects a persistent public safety problem across the state. An October 2025 report by the Violence Policy Center and the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault found that South Carolina has ranked among the top 10 states nationally for the rate of women murdered by men in 23 of the last 25 years, and that more than 78% of South Carolina women killed by men in 2023 were killed with firearms, according to WLTX. South Carolina law enforcement agencies respond to more than 32,000 reported intimate partner and domestic violence incidents each year, calls that officials describe as among the most unpredictable and high-risk encounters for officers and bystanders, the Post and Courier has reported separately.
According to the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, the state records an average of more than 30,000 intimate-partner-violence cases each year. The coalition reported 59 domestic-violence homicides in the state in 2024.
For the Goodwater family, those statistics carry a personal weight. A domestic dispute meant to be resolved with a phone call for help ended instead with a father dead in his own front yard, shielding his daughter and grandchildren from a man now facing the bulk of his adult life behind bars.
