Samantha Watts will serve 45 years in prison, and one of her sons will serve 35, for the 2023 beating death of Corey Adam Soles of Chadbourn.
Samantha Watts, 42 and her son Payton, both of Green Sea, S.C. entered guilty pleas Monday in a Conway courtroom. Both pleaded guilty to murder. Amber Watts, 23, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact, and Jonathan Watts, 21, pleaded guilty to assault and battery. He was sentenced o time served. Amber and Jonathan Watts were sentenced under South Carolina youthful offender rules, since the crime was committed when they were underage.
Soles was reported missing Jan. 10, 2023, near Galivants Ferry. He was found more than a week later, in part because of information gathered by Christopher Rhodes of Precision Search and Rescue. Soles had been beaten by a group of at least seven people, including Samantha Watts.
A press release from the solicitor’s office said that Soles had a broken leg from being attacked by Payton Watts. He was held against his will and confined to a wheelchair, where he was repeatedly beaten with a blunt force object. Samantha Watts ran a drug distribution business, the press release said, “specifically using Payton (Watts) as her muscle, who was 16 at the time of the murder.”
Among the evidence shown in the trial was a video of Soles being loaded into a wheelchair and hidden in a shed on the Watts property. Soles’ cellphone was later found by police near the Watts home. The victim’s body was wrapped in duct tape and had cement blocks attached when searchers found it, nearly two weeks after the killing.
Two other suspects who face lesser charges are still awaiting trial.
Samantha, Payton, Jonathan and Amber Watts (Reuben Long Detention Center photos)
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