{"id":34635,"date":"2024-11-12T02:51:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T08:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34635"},"modified":"2024-11-12T02:51:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T08:51:50","slug":"man-arrested-in-killing-that-was-falsely-blamed-on-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34635","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested in killing that was falsely blamed on bear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A man accused of murder after a 911 call about a\u2002<\/a>fake\u2002<\/a>bear attack<\/a> in the mountains of Tennessee led authorities to a dead man last month has been found and arrested, police said Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrest of Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, in Columbia, South Carolina, ends a manhunt that was launched after the call late Oct. 18 to 911 dispatchers in Monroe County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Monroe County Sheriff\u2019s Office said it was informed Sunday that Hamlett, who had been sought on a first-degree murder warrant, was found and arrested in South Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe sharing of Hamlett\u2019s wanted poster led the public, whom is our most valuable resource, to act as our eyes and ears,\u201d Monroe County Sheriff Tommy J. Jones II said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case began when a man claiming to be Brandon Andrade called 911 and claimed that was injured after he was chased by a bear and fell off a cliff, authorities have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call was pinged in the area of the Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherahola Skyway in Tellico Plains, a small mountain town in Tennessee with a population of about 800 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A body was found, with an ID of Brandon Kristopher Andrade \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t him, and Andrade\u2019s identity had been stolen and used multiple times, the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The person also was not killed by a bear, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce detectives laid eyes on the body, the injuries that the deceased had was not consistent with a bear attack, was not consistent with a fall,\u201d Jones said at a news conference last month. The cause of death was found to be blunt-force trauma to the head, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was very easy to rule out,” Jones said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A first-degree murder warrant was obtained against Hamlett after investigators determined that Hamlett, who was wanted on a parole violation out of Alabama, had been using the stolen identification before the body was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dead man was later identified as Steven Douglas Lloyd, 34, who authorities have said Hamlett befriended during the summer, NBC affiliate WBIR of Knoxville reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamlett was arrested in South Carolina after a hospital employee recognized him and alerted authorities, Columbia police said. Fingerprints confirmed his identity, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamlett was in custody Sunday and arrangements were being made to extradite him to Tennessee, Columbia police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not clear whether Hamlett had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. His case did not appear to be available online on Monroe County court records Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man accused of murder after a 911 call about a\u2002fake\u2002bear attack in the mountains of Tennessee led authorities to a dead man last month has been found and arrested, police said Sunday. The arrest of Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, in Columbia, South Carolina, ends a manhunt that was launched after the call late Oct. 18 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[2450,1226,1247,31177,1350],"class_list":["post-34635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-arrest","tag-attack","tag-death","tag-fake-bear","tag-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34637,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635\/revisions\/34637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}