The multiple killer who terrorised a South Carolina community by shooting dead five people before police killed him yesterday was a career criminal paroled just two months ago, according to authorities.
Patrick Burris (41) was shot by police officers investigating a burglary report at a home 48km (30 miles) from where the killing spree started on June 27th.
The Gaffney killings happened in a 16km (10-mile) area over six days. A peach farmer was killed first, an 83-year-old woman and her daughter were found bound and shot four days later, and the next day a father and his teenage daughter were shot in their family’s furniture shop.
Bullets in Burris’s gun matched those that had killed people in and around Gaffney over six days last week, according to state law enforcement division (Sled) chief Reggie Lloyd.
Investigators say that, while evidence left no doubt he was the killer, they still had no idea why he did it. “He was unpredictable. He was scary. He was weird,” said Sled deputy director Neil Dolan.
Burris had a long police record filled with charges such as larceny, forgery and breaking and entering from states across the southeast.
He had been paroled from a North Carolina prison in April after serving almost eight years.
“Look at this,” Mr Lloyd said, waiving a stapled copy of Burris’s criminal record. “This is, like, 25 pages. At some point the criminal justice system is going to need to explain why this suspect was out on the street.”
The mystery ended in Gastonia yesterday after a couple called police to report a suspicious sport utility vehicle in their neighbourhood. Mike and Terri Valentine were on edge because the Gaffney serial killer was just a short drive away.They watched two people who sometimes visited the neighbouring home get out of the vehicle, followed by a third man who matched the description of the killer: tall, heavy-set, unshaven and wearing a baseball cap. The man appeared to be drunk, Mr Valentine said.
When officers went inside, Ms Valentine said she heard someone yell “put it down”, and heard a gunshot. Then, “bam, bam, bam, bam. Next thing I know, all of Gaston county was here.”Cherokee county sheriff Bill Blanton said investigators would trace the suspect’s recent activities to try to find out if he had killed other people in other places. – (AP)