Hollywood man pleads guilty in DUI reckless homicide that killed child, injured 4 others

"We all loved to spoil him and life is all too quiet without him," she said of Jaxson Bennett.

A metal rod had impaled one brother through the foot. Other injuries sustained by the brothers included a broken chest plate, a facial fracture, eye injuries, loss of vision and nerve damage. One brother sustained minor injuries, Bozarth said.

The Bennetts received at least $1 million as a result of two civil lawsuits, according to court records. About $750,000 came from The Pitt's liquor liability insurance, according to court records.  

Heyward, who suffered a broken knee, had mixed his psychiatric medication with alcohol that night, Bozarth said.

In 2020, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia following a mental health crisis at a tire store in which a family member and police escorted him to a hospital, Drew Carroll, Heyward's attorney, said in court. In the ensuing years, he struggled to keep up with his medications and continued to deteriorate, Carroll said. But he was taking them at the time of the accident. 

Heyward previously was convicted of armed robbery when he was 20 in 1996, Bozarth said. He went on to work for Charleston County for 23 years at the Bees Ferry Landfill in West Ashley and was a heavy machine operator. He had few problems with the law aside from writing a few bad checks, Carroll said.

Jefferson said people missed the subtle signs of his developing schizophrenia which, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, can begin to show its symptoms in someone's late teenage years. 

"I suspect they were simmering since high school in a way most people would have missed it," she said.

Heyward's guilty plea for arson with intent to defraud his insurance company came a year before the fatal accident and stemmed from his mental illness, Carroll said. He lit a rag on fire as he was driving and placed it on the dash, noting he loved that car and did not have a need for money at the time, he said. Heyward admitted to police that he set the fire intentionally and then later filed an insurance claim, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. The affidavit noted his insurance company was investigating another car fire claim of his from 2017.