PIKEVILLE, Ky.-
A man accused of shooting two neighbors to death and wounding a third was captured without incident at home Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Billy Sartin, 47, was unarmed when the Martin County sheriff and deputies alerted by noises in the home arrested him.
Sartin, a felon released from prison three years ago, had been the subject of a manhunt in the rural Inez area since the fatal shootings late Monday of Jeffrey Mattox, 41, and Billy Proctor, 53, and the wounding of Mattox’s live-in girlfriend, Sue Collins, in the town near the West Virginia line.
“He knows he had clothes here, a bed, food and water,” Sheriff Garmon Preece said of why Sartin may have returned home. “If you don’t have friends, where would you go to?”
The shootings prompted the closures Tuesday of nearby schools while authorities searched for Sartin, also known as William Ray Starr.
Sartin remained in jail Wednesday on murder, kidnapping and assault charges, said Kentucky State Police Sgt. Steve Spurlock. Police were awaiting search warrants for Sartin’s home Wednesday morning and had not yet recovered any weapons, Spurlock said.
Collins remained hospitalized in stable condition for a gunshot wound in the upper torso, Spurlock said.
Sartin and the victims were neighbors.
“He’s a weird fella,” said Gary Harmon, who lives nearby. “He walked around here carrying a stick sometimes. You just wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.”
Police said Sartin entered the home Mattox and Collins shared and shot them. He allegedly left with Collins and met Proctor on the street, authorities said. Sartin shot and killed Proctor, then fled on foot, police said.
Whether there was any relationship between the victims and Sartin remained unclear.
Sartin was released from prison in 2003 after serving a three-year sentence for stalking. His rap sheet, dating back to 1984, also includes charges of rape, assault, robbery, burglary and gun possession, but most of the counts were eventually dismissed, according to the county clerk.
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