SC prison guard gets 7 years in prison for stabbing inmate with ‘shank’

A South Carolina Department of Corrections supervising officer, convicted of stabbing an inmate “multiple times” with the inmate’s homemade knife, was sentenced to seven years in prison late Thursday afternoon by a federal judge.

“No one is above the law,” said federal judge Michelle Childs at the end of an almost two-hour hearing at the U.S. courthouse in downtown Columbia.

Minutes later, former Corrections officer Jarrell Boyan, 29, collapsed outside the courtroom, screaming and moaning with emotional pain at the prospect of having to serve seven years as a prisoner in the very kind of facilities where he used to be a guard.

Earlier, in comments to the judge before sentencing, a sobbing Boyan said through tears that he had “blacked out” and unintentionally grabbed the shank, which was in his cargo pants, instead of a pair of handcuffs, before proceeding to stab the inmate, Kenya Spry, repeatedly.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Alyssa Richardson quickly told the judge that Boyan’s explanation defies belief. Video and other evidence shows that Boyan had taken the shank from the inmate, Spry, walked down a hall and put it in a safe room, and that Boyan had to go back to the safe room to get the shank with which he then stabbed Spry, Richardson said.

Spry’s injuries included puncture wounds to his liver and kidney, Richardson said.

Childs said she appreciated that Corrections officers have dangerous jobs and noted that when it comes to inmates having shanks, “it could have been the other way. It could have been the officers who were hurt.”

Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year sentence for former officer Boyan — the maximum allowed by the law under which he was charged, a law that included the offense of “assault with intent to commit murder.”

During the hearing, Boyan’s lawyer, John Delgado, had begged Childs not to judge Boyan on “the worst 20 seconds of his life.”

Evidence showed that Boyan, a graduate of Eau Claire High School, had been a model citizen, and had snapped during an encounter with inmate Spry, whom a former Corrections warden had once described as the most dangerous and violent inmate he’d ever seen among thousands.

Childs said the fact that inmate Spry was severely injured — prosecutors showed a black and white screen-grab from a video showed a bleeding Spry, wincing in pain, with large gashes around his left shoulder and slashes in his stomach area — and that Boyan had tried to cover up his crime were among the reasons she gave him a seven-year term. Spry was also restrained at the time, and Boyan did could have easily avoided inflicting violence on him, the judge said.

During the hearing, Delgado gave numerous details about Spry’s lengthy prison disciplinary record, a record that included stabbing, striking and biting officers and staff and repeatedly covering them with feces and urine squirted from toothpaste tubes. After being stabbed, Spry continued his threats and assaults and was transferred to the Virginia Department of Corrections to get rid of him, Delgado said.

Spry also repeatedly threatened corrections officers, Delgado said, quoting a prison record where the inmate told one female officer that “I’m going to cut you up starting with your finger tips, blow your kids’ heads off... I hope God takes you first.” Spry told another officer, “I know you live in Columbia. I know what kind of car you drive.”

In 2004, Spry was sentenced to a 10-year prison term for an armed robbery in Newberry County. But his repeated offenses behind bars have lengthened his sentence another 10 years or so.

Spry, now 33, was nicknamed “spider man” and “Houdini” for his ability to place himself on walls or ceilings “where logic would otherwise defy it” and had a long history of violent behavior. Spry also had a genius for getting out of handcuffs and was repeatedly found with homemade handcuff keys, Delgado said. “This man is an escape artist.”

Delgado called as a witness former Corrections warden Bernard McKie, who called Spry “the most violent and destructive inmate I’ve seen in my 40 years.”

But prosecutors said in a sentencing memo that “No one is above the law, and certainly the correctional officer charged with upholding the rules and regulations of a state prison cannot be exempt.”

Boyan “relied on his subordinate deputies to restrain his victim as Boyan repeatedly stabbed and punctured (Spry) with the sharpened shank,” the memo said. A “shank” is prison slang for a homemade metal knife.

Boyan later instructed the two corrections officers to lie about how the prisoners got his injuries, the prosecutor’s memo said.

“This was no typical schoolyard bullying: the perpetrator was in a position of power; the victim was vulnerable,” a memo said.

The incident happened in October 2016. Boyan was fired shortly afterwards. He pleaded guilty last August and has been awaiting sentencing.

Spry sustained four stab wounds to his abdomen, punctures to his kidney and liver and had to go to a hospital, according to evidence in the case. He has undergone several surgeries for the injuries since then.

In those documents, Delgado stressed that Spry was an exceptionally violent inmate who had committed “innumerable infractions” including assault, contraband and other misconduct.

“There seems to be no limit to the frequency and nature of Spry’s physically destructive, violent, threatening behaviors towards other inmates and (prison) staff. Spry was always the willful perpetrator and aggravator,” wrote Delgado.

In a pre-sentence filing, Delgado described Boyan as a “repentant and contrite” individual who had a promising career at the Department of Corrections before the stabbing incident, which happened in October 2016. Boyan had served seven years as a Corrections officer before the incident. He was fired shortly afterwards.

Boyan was “one of the youngest lieutenants ever appointed” in Corrections’ history, Delgado wrote. His father, mother, brother and cousins have all been long time Corrections or jail employees — a combined total of more than 65 years working in state prisons and jails, Delgado wrote.

The incident was investigated by FBI Special Agents Craig Januschowski and Cheryn Priestino. Corrections requested the investigation.

After the hearing, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said, “No head of any law enforcement agency ever wants something like this to happen. But if law enforcement officers break the law, they therefore break the public trust, and they must be held accountable.”

Even though the judge had taken three years off Boyan’s proposed sentence, Delgado left the courthouse shaken, describing his client, a single father with a young child, as a good man. “All he wanted was to return to his son.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.