A South Carolina woman who used her husband’s Google account to track him down after suspecting he was cheating has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for fatally shooting the woman sitting beside him in a car.
Michelle Gladys Bingley, 43, of Walterboro, was convicted of murder on Thursday, October 29, in the April 2025 killing of Tineseing Lachell Johns, following a late-night confrontation that turned deadly outside her estranged husband’s mother’s home.
According to prosecutors, Bingley suspected her husband had been unfaithful and used his Google account to determine his whereabouts. When she arrived at the Grace Street residence, she discovered him sitting inside a vehicle with Johns.
Bingley confronted her husband and demanded that he get out of the car. When he refused, she later told investigators she “lost her mind,” pulled out a pink revolver and fired into the occupied vehicle.
Johns was struck by the gunfire and fatally wounded.
Police were called to the neighborhood around 11:30 p.m. on April 28, 2025, after receiving a report of an unresponsive woman. Officers discovered Johns on the ground outside her vehicle with a gunshot wound beneath her arm. She was later pronounced dead, and an autopsy confirmed her death was a homicide.
Bingley fled the scene and disposed of the pink revolver before abandoning her own vehicle, investigators said. The gun was never recovered.
Several days later, she surrendered to authorities and gave detectives an account of the confrontation, insisting she had not intended to injure anyone.
“I didn’t mean to do anything,” Bingley told investigators. “I just did it to scare him.”
But during the same interview, she acknowledged the devastating consequences of her actions.
“I killed somebody,” she admitted.
The case went to trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, where prosecutors presented testimony from 12 witnesses over three days.
Walterboro Police Sgt. Whitlee Fisk testified that investigators recovered a .38-caliber bullet from Johns’ vehicle. Forensic evidence from the autopsy was also consistent with a bullet fired from a revolver, supporting the prosecution’s account of the shooting.
Jurors ultimately rejected Bingley’s explanation that she had only intended to frighten her husband, finding her guilty of murder.
She was also convicted of domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature, possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
Circuit Court Judge Donald B. Hocker sentenced Bingley to 35 years in prison.
Assistant Solicitor Tameaka A. Legette, who prosecuted the case, emphasized the devastating impact that domestic violence can have beyond the immediate victims.
“Domestic violence has devastating and far-reaching consequences for families and communities,” Legette said, adding that the case demonstrated the need for intervention and accountability.
The sentencing came during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, more than a year after the deadly confrontation.
What began with Bingley’s suspicions about her husband’s relationship ended with another woman’s death and a prison sentence that could keep the convicted killer behind bars for decades.
