A 30-year-old woman in South Carolina avoided jail time after pleading guilty to breaking into her ex-boyfriend's house with materials she intended to use for an explosion.
Krystal Heyward entered her guilty plea to second-degree burglary on May 6 in Beaufort County court. The charge stemmed from a September 21, 2024, incident in Hilton Head where she removed an air conditioning unit from a window to enter the home during early morning hours. Court documents show Heyward told arriving police officers that she planned to blow up the house and carried items including a pressurized bottle of bleach, a sauce jar, a chemically soaked cloth, lighters, and a knife. Officials later confirmed the materials could not have caused an explosion, leading to the dismissal of a destructive device charge as part of the plea deal. Heyward received 18 months of probation, mandatory counseling for mental health and substance abuse, a five-year suspended prison sentence, and a permanent restraining order against her former partner. The couple had ended their relationship a few weeks before the break-in, according to the ex-boyfriend's mother.