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Jesse Osborne, who was 14 at the time of the 2016 attack on
Townville Elementary School some 40 miles (65 km) southwest of
Greenville, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors said they did not make any deals with Osborne and
his guilty plea would not reduce the sentence they are were
asking a judge to impose.
"I am seeking the maximum sentence in this case, life without
parole, which is the appropriate sentence for the murder of
six-year-old Jacob Hall, and the attempted murders of his
classmates and teachers," Tenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor David
Wagner said in a statement.
An attorney for Osborne could not be reached by Reuters for
comment following the plea hearing in Anderson County Circuit
Court. Local media reported that during the hearing Osborne's
attorney said that the plea was in his client's best interest.
Prosecutors say Osborne killed his father Jeffrey Osborne, 47,
at their home in Townville before driving to the school in the
family's pick-up truck and crashing it into a fence.
Osborne then began shooting with a handgun on the school
playground until he was tackled by a firefighter, who pinned him
down until police arrived, according to prosecutors.
Student, Jacob Hall, 6, was shot in the leg and died three days
after the attack.
The crime rocked the small South Carolina town and also had
national implications.
Jacob's friend, first-grader Ava Olsen, witnessed the shooting
and in a letter last year to U.S. President Donald Trump
obtained by the Washington Post and local media, told him she
was scared and pleaded with him to keep kids safe from guns.
Trump replied it was brave of her to share her story, they said.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting
by Harriet McLeod in Charleston, South Carolina; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
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