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A South Carolina woman who did not stop after she hit a bicyclist who then died near Lake Wylie and claimed she hit a deer will not serve any prison time after a plea deal in the hit-and-run.
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Kailey Blair Carpenter, 27, did not admit guilt Thursday in York County criminal court in the 2025 death of Anthony Raheem Parker, 31, of Clover.
Prosecutors and Carpenter’s lawyer, Dayne Phillips of Columbia, agreed to a plea deal for probation.
Carptenter pleaded guilty under an Alford plea, which is when a person does not have to admit guilt but accepts the consequences of a guilty plea. In an Alford plea, a person must recognize there is a substantial risk of being found guilty if the case goes to trial, yet pleads guilty after receiving a benefit from prosecutors, York County Judge Bill McKinnon said in court.
“You want to plead guilty to it anyway because the state has offered you a favorable plea deal, is that what you believe?” McKinnon asked Carpenter.
Carpenter said, “Yes, sir.”
McKinnon sentenced Carpenter to two years probation and suspended a five-year prison term.
The felony charge of hit and run resulting in death can carry as much as 25 years in prison under South Carolina law.
Anthony Raheem Parker’s body found in June 2025
Parker’s body was found by a passerby along S.C. 55 in western York County north of Rock Hill and southwest of Charlotte on the morning of June 8, 2025. The crash happened sometime around midnight, prosecutor Matthew Shelton said.
Carpenter did not stop or contact law enforcement afterward, Shelton said.
S.C. Highway Patrol troopers put out a plea to the public for information about the crash soon after Parker died. Investigators traced debris from the scene to the vehicle and days later arrested Carpenter, Shelton said.
She told police initially she believed she had hit a dog or a deer on the dark road and did not stop because she was a female all alone in the car, Shelton said.
The investigation showed Parker was walking or riding his bicycle on or beside the roadway, Shelton told the judge. Investigators could not determine if Parker was “walking in the roadway or not at the time.” Shelton said.
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Prosecutors agreed to a plea deal for probation that resolved the case without a trial where there is no guarantee of a guilty verdict.
“I believe the facts support the charges; we could have taken this case to trial,” Shelton said. “We had a reasonably good chance of a conviction to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but it certainly would have been a question of fact to the jury.”
Parker’s family agreed with and supported the decision to resolve the case in a plea deal without a trial where Carpenter accepted responsibility for what happened and received probation, Shelton told McKinnon.
“They (Parker’s family) are just looking forward to closing this part of history and moving on with life,” Shelton said of the family.
Mindy Latta, Parker’s mother, and his grandmother did not speak in court and did not want to comment to The Herald afterward. Latta and Carpenter did meet in the public hallway outside court after the hearing where the two spoke and embraced.
The Herald was the only media organization at court Thursday.
Defense: Carpenter had no idea she had hit a person
Other than pleading guilty, Carpenter did not speak in court. Several members of her family were in the courtroom.
She has no prior criminal record.
“Every loss of life is tragic, and this situation is not one that we would minimize,” Phillips told the judge. “However, Kailey has never wavered that she had absolutely no idea that she hit a person.”
Carpenter believed it was a deer, Phillips said. Law enforcement conceded the rural area where the incident happened in the dark has had “hundreds” of deer collisions, Phillips said.
Phillips told Judge McKinnon that Parker had been in the road.
“Again, it’s tragic, “Phillips said. “For everyone involved.”
He said the guilty plea to a felony means Carpenter, although maintaining her innocence, accepts the consequences for something that has “weighed heavily on her.”
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