Seth Hopkins pleads guilty to child sex crime, sentenced to 20 years

Columbia, S.C. (WOLO) — The son of the man arrested in a deadly shootout with Florence Co. officers last year, will now spend two decades in jail. Seth David Hopkins pleaded guilty to child sex crimes Monday morning at Richland Co. Courthouse.

Seth will receive credit for the 437 days he’s already served. He will also be required to wear a GPS monitor for life upon his release, and he must register as a sex offender.

He entered a guilty plea to a charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor. Because this was part of a plea agreement, nine other criminal sexual conduct charges were dropped.

It was in building a case against Seth that Florence Co. Sheriff’s Investigator Farrah Turner lost her life. On Oct. 3, 2018, Seth’s father, Fred Hopkins, opened fire on Turner and other officers when she went to his house with a search warrant to investigate Seth’s involvement in child sex crimes. Fred opened fire and injured seven officers, killing Turner and Florence Police Sgt. Terrence Carraway.

“It was search warrants to retrieve evidence from Seth’s bedroom and other parts of the house to build this case further. Which, after the search warrant was executed after the day of the shooting, we did retrieve everything that we needed,” said Chief Deputy Glen Kirby with the Florence Co. Sheriff’s Office.

For the Florence Co. Sheriff’s Office, the guilty plea is a source of closure.

“It’s been a roller coaster of a ride for the last 15 months. I just think this case, it speaks volumes of the case that Farrah prepared, and was prepared to go forward with,” said Kirby. “Just gives a little closure to Farrah’s last case, resulted in a guilty plea.”

“It was a good plea. The defense attorney and my prosecutor worked very hard, they vetted all the issues. I think it was a fair sentence,” said Ed Clements, Solicitor with the 12th Judicial Circuit. 

Clements said because this case involved young victims, it’s better that the case didn’t head to court.

“There were multiple counts.  It would have been a very, very tough thing emotionally for the victims to go through this in a trial, having to listen to all the evidence presented,” said Clements. “I hope this brings them some closure and some peace. They’ve been through a lot and I hope they can heal now.”

Fred remains in jail, and faces two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder in connection to the 2018 shooting.