The search for the suspect in a murder in East Tennessee has ended. Nicholas Hamlett was arrested on Sunday at a hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, according to the Columbia Police Department. He had been wanted since the murder of 34-year-old Steven Douglas Lloyd on October 18.
WSMV
reports that Hamlett befriended Lloyd before luring him into a remote wooded area, where he killed him to steal his identity. Hamlett allegedly used Lloyd’s identity to make a false emergency call, claiming a bear was following a distressed hiker, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
Hamlett’s capture ensued when a local hospital staff member recognized him, leading to his identification and arrest facilitated by the U.S. Marshals Service Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force.
NewsChannel5
reports that Hamlett, who faces first-degree murder charges in Tennessee, was also wanted in Alabama for a parole violation about various charges that include attempted murder, kidnapping, and forgery.
The complexities of the case extended to Hamlett’s use of an alternate name. Authorities pieced together that after killing Lloyd, Hamlett adopted the alias Nicholas Andrade. This information came to light after Lloyd’s body was discovered with identification bearing the Andrade name, “the same name Sheriff Tommy Jones says Hamlett gave to dispatchers in Polk County,” as noted by
FOX17
. The investigation is still ongoing.
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