COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Columbia gas station owner who was arrested and charged with the murder of a 14-year-old boy will stay behind bars for now. A judge denied bond for Rick Chow in the May 2023 shooting death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton as family and friends of both looked on.
"The court has no other decision but to deny bond for this case," Judge Jocelyn Newman shared with the court. "That's the decision of the court."
Newman delivered the court's decision at Chow's bond hearing on Friday as the Carmack-Belton family listened. Before the decision, the family had a chance to speak.
"He had morals, he was loving," the teen's mother, Nicole Carmack, said, crying. "Now my son is in a box in his room."
"My heart aches for Cyrus. Cyrus," the victim's grandmother said, sobbing.
The 14-year-old's family appealed to the court, giving testimony that Cyrus had a bright future ahead before his killing.
"I don't know where to start," the teenager's father, Troy Belton, said. "I do know that we don't have Cyrus anymore."
"My son cannot go and begin ninth grade this year. My son can't sit at the dinner table and eat with his family. My son cannot go and play with his friends," Carmack said. "This event has caused the entire family emotional distress. We're unable to sleep."
Carmack-Belton was killed after investigators say the defendant chased the teenager out of his gas station and accused him of shoplifting.
"Cyrus was running so hard that he ran out of the shoes," the state's Byron Gipson shared with the court.
Then, police say Chow shot him in the back. Chow's family and friends were also allowed to speak before the court.
"Rick has always been a very loving, attentive and hands-on father," a friend of the Chow family said.
"I have only known Rick to be a fair and even tempered person. I've never seen him raise his voice or be confrontational," a former work colleague said. "He is a family man raising his two sons with his loving wife. He has always put his family's welfare first, is a hard-working, dedicated person. And I've only known Rick to be a giving person."
"He was always kind to me," a former gas station employee said. "He was very soft-spoken, and I don't think I've ever really seen him upset unless he was disciplining his two boys."
"He's an exceptional husband and father," the defendant's wife, Alice Chow, told the court. "And he's always encouraged me and our kids to do better in life, to do the best we can. He works tirelessly to provide for us."
Defense attorney Jack Swerling argued that Chow was not a flight risk or a danger and did not need to be in Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, where Swerling said he's in a holding cell practically in "solitary confinement."
"It's just an intolerable situation for anybody to have to live in," Swerling said in court. "And that's not what anybody else has to go through in that jail."
"It's intolerable to live like this," Gipson later said, gesturing to the victim's family. "For a family to see their 14-year-old child has been killed because he was wrongfully accused of stealing above the water, chased out of the store."
Ultimately, Judge Newman agreed with the state, pointing to the prosecution's idea that having Chow out could pose a threat to the greater community since this case has garnered national attention and prompted local protests in the aftermath of the teen's killing.
Chow will be back at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, where defense attorney Jack Swerling says he is being kept in a holding cell.
"They're disappointed obviously, I mean, they've been waiting and hoping that he was going to get out," Swerling said about the Chow family. "It was a very loving close family. And he's got great family and community support. So I mean, it's natural that they would be very disappointed."
Shortly after the decision, lawyer Todd Rutherford held a press conference where he referred to Swerling's statement in court that Chow was acting in self-defense after the defendant said Carmack-Belton pointed a pistol at him and his son. In a civil case, Rutherford, representing the family, says three eyewitnesses have told investigators that the teen never had a gun.
"They're the same people that talk to the sheriff's department, the same people that have talked to the solicitor's office, and what they say is entirely different. They say that they never saw a gun in Cyrus's hands," Rutherford said. "What we've heard is that there was a gun found at the scene. What we don't know is how the gun got there."