Authorities in South Carolina have captured a man who allegedly murdered a hiker in woodlands in Tennessee then attempted to disguise the killing as a bear attack.
Nicholas Wayne Hamlett was arrested in Columbia on Sunday night almost one month after police found the body of the hiker, Steven Lloyd of Knoxville, Tennessee, close to the Cherahola Skyway in Monroe county, 80 miles north-east of Chattanooga.
On 18 October, the Monroe sheriff’s received a call from a person identifying himself as Brandon Andrade, who claimed to be injured and lying partially in water after being chased by a bear and falling over a cliff.
Rescuers found a body carrying Andrade’s identification – but detectives quickly established the victim was Lloyd. Hamlett, they said, had stolen Andrade’s identity and used it several times in efforts to avoid arrest for a parole violation in Alabama.
Sunday’s arrest in South Carolina ended a manhunt across several states to which Hamlett, 45, was known to have ties. He was recognized at a local hospital and identified by the FBI through fingerprints after his arrest.
Hamlett now faces extradition to Tennessee to face a first-degree murder charge after detectives concluded that he befriended – then killed – Lloyd, 34, before placing the fake 911 call about a bear attack.
He is also wanted by authorities for the parole violation in Alabama, where he was previously charged with two counts of attempted murder and various other offenses including kidnapping and forgery.
FBI agents joined the Tennessee bureau of investigation and local police in efforts to locate Hamlett, who was arrested in Florida more than a decade ago after allegedly luring a man into the woods in Coosada, Alabama, according to al.com.
The Alabama news outlet said Hamlett held the victim in that case at gunpoint and attempted to strike him with a baseball bat before attempting to bury him alive. He was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping – but accepted a plea deal for felony assault in 2012 and a 20-year prison sentence.
That episode, al.com said, was a confidence trick in which Hamlett used the name Joshua Jones when he reached out to that victim so that “he could get some insurance”.
Court records show Hamlett has four previous felony convictions.
