By admin 
A South Carolina man charged with killing a Rock Hill teen in May told a judge in court Tuesday he was in North Carolina the day she died.
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Sean Xavier Hubbard denied involvement in the death of Camariya Tidwell, 19, outside her family home in Rock Hill.
“I did not commit a murder,” Hubbard, 34, told visiting Judge Chris Taylor in York County criminal court.
Hubbard then told the judge: “I stated I was in Albemarle, North Carolina all day.”
Albemarle is east of Charlotte.
Hubbard made the statement in court despite police saying, after Hubbard was arrested, that home surveillance video from earlier the same day on May 16 shows Hubbard firing a shotgun at the front door of the home where Tidwell lived with her family in Rock Hill.
Hubbard, of Clover, was arrested after Tidwell was shot and died, police have said.
The house was also fired at days earlier on May 12, authorities allege.
Shifarnia McCullough, Tidwell’s mother, and other family members sat in the courtroom behind prosecutors and Rock Hill police detectives. McCullough did not speak in court Tuesday. McCullough told The Herald in May after her daughter died she wanted answers about the investigation and police protection the day her daughter died.
Video shooting of door seen online
When police charged Hubbard with murder, they also charged him with firing a shotgun at her family’s front door earlier that same day of May 16.
That’s the incident that has been seen publicly online on news and social media sites that was taken from surveillance video of the house doorbell camera. In that video, a man walks to the front door and fires a shotgun at it.
Hubbard faces charges of murder, two counts of shooting into a dwelling, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime from the incidents, according to prosecutors and court records.
Police have said previously that officials did not believe Tidwell was the target of the shootings, but any motive for the case was not addressed Tuesday in court.
Prosecutor Hannah Woods did not address Hubbard’s alibi claims. The video of the afternoon shooting at the house on May 16 was also not addressed in court Tuesday.
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Hubbard in court because he wanted to fire his lawyer
Hubbard was in court Tuesday because he asked to relieve the public defender who is representing him, court statements showed.
Hubbard had written a letter to prosecutors from jail days ago because he “was misidentified” in one Rock Hill Police Department document in the case, in which the last name was different and not Hubbard, court statements showed.
“He was demanding to be released from jail,” in the letter, Woods told the judge.
Woods told Taylor that there was a “scrivener’s error,” meaning a typographical error, in Hubbard’s last name on a supplemental report made by police after the killing. However, all other documents, including arrest warrants, properly identify Hubbard by name as the accused killer, Woods said.
Hubbard pointed out the error among the pages of documents he carried to court from jail. He said he wanted to relieve his lawyer, Phil Smith from the York County Public Defender’s Office.
Hubbard faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder.
“I guess my point was I know my whereabouts and where I was and actually what I’ve done,” Hubbard told Taylor.
Smith, the defense attorney, told the judge Hubbard believed that finding the error in the documents means the case gets dismissed the next day.
“That’s just unfortunately not a reality in how the system works,” Smith said.
Smith said the public defender’s office remains happy to represent Hubbard. Woods, the prosecutor, told the judge there is a “large amount of evidence” that still requires testing to be finished.
Taylor denied Hubbard’s request to remove the public defender’s office as his lawyer.
“You haven’t seen everything yet,” Taylor told Hubbard about the case. “At this stage I think it’s too early to appoint another attorney.”
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Hubbard remains in the York County jail. No trial date has been set.