A man wanted for murder after making a fake 911 call claiming to be a distressed hiker was spotted this week in Chapin, South Carolina, sparking extensives searches in the area northwest of Columbia.
Officials said Sunday morning that Nicholas Hamlett had not been located and remains at large, WYFF reported.
Hamlett was charged with murder earlier this month after he allegely made a 911 call in Tennessee on October 18 claiming to be Brian Andrade and saying he fell off a cliff while being chased by a bear, as CrimeOnline reported. When search and rescue crews found “Andrade,” he was dead, and an autopsy determined the man died from blunt force trauma.
They further learned that the dead man was not Brian Andrade, even though he had identification under that name on him. Investigators found the Andrade identification had been stolen and used frequently by a man identified as Hamlett, who was wanted for a parole violation in Alabama.
Monroe County investigators traced the phone used to make the fake 911 call and spoke with a man they believe to be Hamlett at a home in Knoxville, although he used a fake name and was gone by the time police arrived at the home.
Police have not released the identity of the dead man, but Hamlett was charged with his murder.
“He has a criminal history of stealing other people’s identity and living under false identities and then attacking victims and taking their identity,” David Jolley of the US Marshals Office told WATE. “He’s been living for the past for probably six years under an assumed identity. He may actually be using a totally different name, you know? And we don’t know what that is right now, but we do have reason to believe that he may have stolen another identity.”
In South Carolina, investigators said Hamlett was spotted camping outside the town of Chapin and was later seen near the high school.
Hamlett reportedly has ties to Alabama, Montana, Tennessee, Alaska, Kentucky and Florida as well as South Carolina. He is descibed as 5 feet 7 inches and 170 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes and is considered armed and dangerous.
