COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A man who authorities said was high on methamphetamine and hadn’t slept for days when he killed five people inside a home frequented by drug users was sentenced to life without parole Friday after pleading guilty to their murders. James Douglas Drayton, 28, admitted to the October 2022 killings in Spartanburg County in exchange for prosecutors not seeking the death penalty, Solicitor Barry Barnette said in a statement. Drayton said he would not appeal, and the life sentences for five counts of murder don’t allow him to be released on parole, Barnette said. Prosecutors didn’t give a motive for the killings. Drayton told investigators he was high and hadn’t slept for four days when he killed everyone in the home where he was staying, authorities said. All five men were shot at close range and some were still asleep as Drayton pulled the trigger, Barnette said. “Wouldn’t have mattered to me if they were church members and never did any of that stuff, or they were heroin addicts. They were still somebody’s son, brother, friend, dad,” former Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said at the time. “They are all a child of God — they didn’t deserve what
