Sean Michael Peterson, 30, of Walterboro has been charged with the Jan. 1 shooting deaths of Kim Drawdy, 30, and his nine-year-old daughter, Lauren Drawdy.
Peterson was arrested and had bond set at $50,000 on July 23, charged with two counts of negligent use of a firearm while hunting, resulting in death. The bond hearing was held via Zoom. The bond order said the state argued that Peterson was a flight risk and danger to the community, due to the charges and his family ties outside Colleton. He will have to wear an electronic monitoring device. He was also ordered to have no contact with the victims’ family and not to leave Colleton County except to work in Charleston County.
SCDNR has been investigating the incident since January. The SCDHR report said that Peterson, the Drawdys and Bobby Beach were hunting deer on private property off Barracada Road on Jan. 1. The Drawdys took a stand near a pond, Peterson took a stand in a cutover, while Beach walked the property in an effort to run deer to the hunters.
About an hour later, the Drawdys met Beach and decided to end the hunt in this area and reportedly headed toward Peterson’s position to discuss the next location. The Drawdys split off from Beach and began walking through the woods. Beach told officers he continued walking the trail, whistling and hollering as he walked, to retrieve Peterson.
Beach said he heard two shots, heard someone yell and began to move toward where he heard the shots. He then saw Peterson running toward him, screaming he thought he shot someone. Beach said he took Peterson’s gun and Peterson called 911.
Beach said he could not see any movement from the victims nor any breathing. He stayed on the phone with 911 and met responders on a nearby road.
Peterson said in the report that he heard crashing and sloshing noises nearby, saw movement in the brush and a flicker he thought was a deer tail. He heard Beach whistling and hollering, so he thought the hunt was still underway. He reportedly fired two shots and heard someone yell. He then ran to Beach in a panic.
The two remained on the scene and met with SCDNR and Colleton County personnel.
The report said Peterson had 22 years of hunting experience and graduated a hunter education course in 2004. He was approximately 122.5 feet from the victims, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun with 00-buckshot.
Drawdy, according to the report, was wearing a camo shirt and jeans, also carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. Lauren was wearing a white and black shirt, camo coat/vest and black pants with a floral print.
The most important contributing factor in the shooting was listed in the report
as “failure to identify target.”
