A federal inmate escaped from custody at a medical clinic in western North Carolina and fatally shot a detention officer with his own gun Monday, then fled in a stolen vehicle before being captured in another county, a sheriff said.
The inmate had been taken to an orthopedics office in Murphy for undisclosed treatment when a scuffle began. The inmate took the officer's weapon and shot him, Cherokee County Sheriff Dustin Smith said at a news conference. The inmate ran into the parking lot, jumped into a vehicle that had just arrived and took off. The inmate was later apprehended in Macon County, nearly an hour to the east, Smith said.
