According to cops: Hospital worker helps nab murder suspect who staged killing as bear attack to steal victim’s identity

An eagle-eyed South Carolina hospital employee found a Tennessee fugitive allegedly killing a man and attempted to set the scene as a bear attack.

Sunday night, Nicholas Wayne Hamlett was arrested by Columbia police after an employee of a hospital identified him and notified authorities.

Hamlett was hauled into custody by cops. Positively identifying the suspect, a fingerprint scan Hamlett is under custody of U.S. Marshals and awaits extradition back to Tennessee.

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Hamlett is accused of first-degree murder over the death of Steven Douglas Lloyd, 34 years old. To obtain Lloyd’s identity, Hamlett befriended him with an eye toward killing him.

Lloyd had mental health problems going back to his adoption at birth, police said. His adopted family claimed he occasionally lived on the streets and suffered with trust problems. Detectives claim Hamlett lured him into the forest and developed a plan to hide the murder.

Residents in Chapin, South Carolina, about 20 miles northwest of Columbia, reported seeing Hamlett on Halloween night, according to local reports.

Authorities say that on Oct. 18, at approximately 11:34 a.m., Monroe County’s E-911 — which provides callers’ location and phone numbers — received a call from their Polk County counterparts about a “distressed hiker” who claimed to be a man named Brandon Andrade.

“He advised the dispatcher that he had fallen off a cliff while running from a bear,” according to the note. “The distressed caller claimed that he was injured and partially in the water.”

The call came in near the Charles Hall Bridge on the Cherahola Skyway in Tellico Plains. First responders arrived, searched the area, and discovered a dead man with the identification of Brandon Kristopher Andrade on his body.

But when law enforcement dug deeper, they discovered that the victim was not Andrade, and that the ID had been stolen and used multiple times elsewhere.

They claim Hamlett had been using the ID and was wanted in Alabama for a parole violation.

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