Murder Suspect Who Alleged Bear Attack Is Captured in South Carolina

The suspect was taken into custody, ending a multistate manhunt in a case involving a suspicious emergency call, a false identity and a fake bear attack.

Law enforcement officials have captured a man who was wanted for murder in rural Tennessee, ending a multistate manhunt in a bizarre case involving a suspicious emergency call, a false identity and a fake bear attack.

Sheriff Tommy J. Jones II of Monroe County, Tenn., announced on Sunday that Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, had been taken into custody in Columbia, S.C., more than three weeks after the police found a dead body near a bridge on the Cherohala Skyway, which runs through the town of Tellico Plains.

Mr. Hamlett faces first-degree murder charges related to the death of Steven Douglas Lloyd, 34, of Knoxville, Tenn., Sheriff Jones said in a statement on social media.

Mr. Lloyd’s body was discovered by the police as they responded to a 911 call made on Oct. 18.

The caller, who had identified himself as Brandon Kristopher Andrade, told the dispatcher that he had been chased off a cliff by a bear, leaving him injured and partially submerged in the water. When the police arrived at the scene, they found a deceased man with the ID of Mr. Andrade.

But their investigation soon took a strange turn.

The injuries on the body, the sheriff’s office said, weren’t consistent with a bear attack or a fall. And neither the deceased man nor the 911 caller, they determined, was Mr. Andrade. It was a case of stolen identity, and Mr. Andrade’s name had been used on multiple occasions in other fraudulent schemes.

The police said Mr. Hamlett, a parolee with a long criminal history, had used Mr. Andrade’s identity. They also named Mr. Hamlett as a suspect in the killing of the man they had found, who had not yet been identified at that time. After the 911 call, the police said, Mr. Hamlett fled from his home and used a fake name when speaking with law enforcement in Knoxville, Tenn.

Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office identified the murder victim as Mr. Lloyd, a former foster child who had been known to live on the streets but who had kept in contact with his adoptive family. Mr. Hamlett, they added, befriended Mr. Lloyd before luring him into the woods and taking his life.

Mr. Lloyd’s family “was shocked to learn that their beloved son’s life had been taken by someone that Steven trusted,” the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Mr. Hamlett was captured on Sunday after a person recognized him at a hospital in Columbia, S.C., and alerted the authorities. In addition to the murder charge, he also faces a parole violation in the state of Alabama.