Six-year-old Frankie Martin Washington, a student at Whale Branch Elementary School in Beaufort, South Carolina, died on March 4, 2024, from a gunshot wound to the head he sustained on March 3. Emergency responders found Frankie with a critical head injury at the Cross Creek Apartments and he was taken first to a local hospital, then transferred to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where he later died.

Investigators say the shooting was not the result of an unknown shooter. Authorities allege 18-year-old Benjamin Shamar Seabrook IV stored a switch-modified pistol under the child’s pillow; that firearm discharged and struck Frankie in the head. Prosecutors charged Seabrook with involuntary manslaughter, obstruction of justice, unlawful conduct toward a child, tampering with physical evidence, and filing a false police report. A second person, 22-year-old Desarai Bennett, was arrested and charged with being an accessory after the fact, criminal conspiracy, and filing a false police report. Police allege Seabrook and Bennett, who were described as half-siblings, hid the handgun and staged a hole in a porch screen to support a story about a stray bullet from outside.

Bond for Seabrook was revoked because of a prior violent crime. If anyone knew Frankie, his family, or has information about what happened at Cross Creek Apartments on March 3, please come forward.