NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A fugitive accused of killing a man in Tennessee and trying to pass off the body as someone else’s by calling 911, identifying himself as that person and saying he had fallen off a cliff while being chased by a bear has been captured in South Carolina, authorities said. In a social media post Sunday, the Columbia Police Department said Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, was recognized by an employee at a hospital in the South Carolina city.
Authorities confirmed his identity with a fingerprint scanner and he’s in the temporary custody of the U.S. Marshals Service while awaiting extradition to Tennessee.
Authorities in Monroe County, Tennessee, and elsewhere had been looking for Hamlett since last month. “After observing Hamlett at a local hospital, a good citizen alerted the authorities and brought this manhunt to a peaceful end,” Monroe County Sheriff Tommy Jones said in a social media post. The sheriff’s office said last month that Hamlett called 911 on Oct.
18 claiming to have fallen off a cliff while running from a bear. Using the name Brandon Andrade, Hamlett claimed he was injured and partially in the water, authorities added. When emergency responders searched the area near a highway bridge in Tellico Plains, where the call had come from, they found the body of a man with Andrade’s ID on it.
However, authorities determined that the man was not Andrade, whose ID had been stolen and used multiple times. The person using Andrade’s stolen i.
