The man who sparked a nationwide search after he allegedly staged a hiker’s murder as a bear attack in the Tennessee woodlands has been found and taken into custody, law enforcement said.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office of Tennessee shared that law enforcement in Columbia, South Carolina, had found Nicholas Wayne Hamlett and took him into custody on Sunday night after he was recognized at a local hospital. The FBI was able to confirm his identity by verifying his fingerprints.
Hamlett is currently facing first-degree murder charges out of Tennessee and a parole violation out of Alabama, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said.
In mid-October, 34-year-old Steven Douglas Lloyd of Knoxville was found dead in a staged bear attack that was allegedly linked to Hamlett.
Just before 11:35 p.m. on Oct. 18, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office received a transferred call from nearby Polk County about a distressed hiker named “Brandon Andrade” who told dispatchers that he had “fallen off a cliff while running from a bear,” and that he was injured and partially in the water.
Authorities were then able to pinpoint the man’s location in the area of the Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherahola Skyway in Tellico Plains, at least 80 miles northwest of Chattanooga.
When emergency personnel and search and rescue crews arrived, they found a dead man with Andrade’s ID on him and brought the body to the Knox County Regional Forensic Center.
After reviewing the scene, detectives then learned that the dead man was not Andrade and that the ID “had been stolen and used on multiple occasions.” The dead man they had found was Lloyd.
Additionally, they learned that Hamlett had been using Andrade’s ID and that he was wanted out of Alabama on a parole violation. Authorities had then determined that Hamlett had used a fake name when calling dispatch after the distress call and that he was believed to have fled his Tennessee home before his identity was verified.
While speaking to Lloyd’s family, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office learned that he was a foster child who had suffered from trust issues and had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, a condition that makes it difficult to establish healthy relationships with parents and caregivers.
At some point before his death, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office believed that Hamlett had met Lloyd, “befriended him, and lured him into a wooded area to take Steven’s life and his identity.”
Reports said that Hamlett had ties to Tennessee, Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Kentucky, North Carolina and Florida, and he was believed to be have been armed and dangerous throughout the manhunt.
