A 22-year-old was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday for murdering a North Myrtle Beach man he found through the sex offender registry last year.
Kameron Scott Horton pleaded guilty to killing 73-year-old Darrell Lane Johnson on Jan. 30, 2022. Horton addressed the court after he was sentenced.
"I understand the severity of what I've done. ... I wasn't myself," Horton said. "I want the chance to make up for it."
During Tuesday's hearing, 15th Circuit Senior Assistant Solicitor George DeBusk said Horton had never met Johnson prior to the day he killed him. Horton learned about Johnson through the sex offender registry.
On the day Johnson was murdered, Horton was seen on a Ring door bell camera approaching Johnson's apartment on Hillside Drive South, according to an arrest warrant.
A neighbor alerted law enforcement the next day that Johnson was face down with blood on him and that he lived alone, according to a case report from North Myrtle Beach police.
The officer noted in the case report that Johnson had blood pooled around his body and that some of it was dry.
"The male was cold to the touch, did not have a pulse, and was determined to be deceased," the case report read.
Horton was arrested by Hardeeville police and held at the Jasper County Detention Center where North Myrtle Beach detectives picked him up on Feb. 2, 2022, and brought him back to Horry County.
Horton's attorney Morgan Martin said Tuesday that Horton was in Jasper County to see a counselor.
Judge Bentley Price stated that Horton had been determined by the state to be mentally competent.
Johnson was on the sex offender registry because of a child molestation case in June 1988, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. He was convicted in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and served time in prison from June 1990 to February 1995, online records state.
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