Man who killed his wife's boyfriend will go to prison, but not for murder. Here's why.
WEST PALM BEACH — Terrance Bythwood wanted to win back his wife. When that didn’t work, he killed her new boyfriend instead.
It was murder, said the relatives of 41-year-old Dishawn Reynolds, executed outside a Riviera Beach apartment on June 20, 2020. They scowled and wept and shook their heads April 13 as Bythwood pleaded guilty to manslaughter instead.
Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis and defense attorney Craig Lawson negotiated the plea deal after two witnesses recanted their statements and a third fled the state. Circuit Judge Sarah Willis sentenced Bythwood to 15 years in prison and 10 more of probation, with credit for the two and a half years he spent in jail after his arrest.
"Good luck to you, Mr. Bythwood," Willis told him before he left the courtroom a final time. "As for the family: I'm very sorry for your loss."
Reynolds' grandmother, Eunice Haigood, laughed.
"No, you're not," she said, too low for the judge to hear.
'I want him to pay': Husband to spend life in prison for killing man he found with his wife
Best Buy murder: Family wants Boca grandmother's killer to suffer after 2019 beating, burning
Marital problems precipitated fatal shooting
Bythwood hounded his estranged wife in the months leading up to the shooting, Tina Gilmore told investigators. Her husband wanted first to rekindle their marriage, she said, then to find out who she was dating after his numerous affairs drove her away.
He found his answer on June 20, 2020, in the parking lot of an apartment complex on North Congress Avenue.
Gilmore and Reynolds returned there at 1:15 a.m. after a night out. They said good-bye, and within moments, a hooded man took Gilmore’s place by Reynolds’ side. It was too dark to see his face, Gilmore told Riviera Beach police, but she said she believed it was Bythwood. The man aimed a gun at Reynolds.
A neighbor said he heard as many as eight rapid-fire gunshots, then a pause, then seven more. Gilmore began to flee in her own car, but stopped when she heard Reynolds screaming on the ground.
"Take me to the hospital," the neighbor said Reynolds begged her. "I don't want to die."
Gilmore dragged him into her car and drove him to JFK Hospital North in West Palm Beach, later using baby wipes to clean his blood from the passenger seat.
Investigators wrote in Bythwood's arrest report that he woke Gilmore's teenage son at 7 a.m. and told him: "That dude is dead."
"Who?" the son asked. He said Bythwood waved him off, then made him promise to tell any inquiring police officers that he had been home all night. He hadn’t, the son said.
Murder or self-defense? A father's rage against his daughter's boyfriend receives its final judgment
Related: West Palm Beach man fatally shot estranged wife's boyfriend
Bythwood's accusers recanted statements
Gilmore and her son's statements helped lay the foundation for Bythwood's arrest for first-degree murder. Their decision to recant, years later when attorneys took their depositions, helped undo it.
The evidence against Bythwood was only circumstantial, Lawson said.
Investigators found a .40-caliber cartridge casing in his home that matched those found at the crime scene, but they never recovered the actual firearm.
Geolocation data from Bythwood's cellphone revealed that he was at the parking lot that night, police said, but surveillance-camera video captured only the bright flash of gunfire — not the face of the man who pulled the trigger.
Ellis said she and her co-counselor, Richard Clausi Jr., worked toward a resolution that would hold Bythwood accountable and give some measure of justice to the victim’s family, despite witnesses’ unwillingness to testify against him.
Reynolds' grandmother agreed to the deal and cried as it unfolded in the courtroom Thursday. One of her grandsons spoke to the judge in her stead, pausing at times to glare at his cousin's killer. Everyone has a date, he said; Reynolds' was June 20, 2020.
Bythwood's, he promised, is next.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm husband who killed wife's boyfriend gets final judgement
