An inmate who had escaped minutes earlier from a county jail in South Carolina was shot and killed by a woman after he kicked in her back door, the local sheriff said.
The inmate was still in his orange jail jumpsuit and had grabbed a knife sharpening tool from the woman’s kitchen in Pickens as he headed toward her bedroom around 3 a.m. Tuesday, Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark said.
The woman was home alone and had gone through training to get a concealed weapon permit, Clark said.
Bruce McLaughlin Jr., 30, died from a gunshot to the head, Pickens County Coroner Kandy Kelley said.
McLaughlin and a second inmate, Timothy Dill, beat up two guards in an escape they had planned for days, Clark said at a news conference.
Dill was recaptured by deputies without incident about the same time McLaughlin was shot, but the two were going in opposite directions, the sheriff said.
Dill is charged with escape along with two counts of kidnapping, and first-degree assault and battery as well as other charges.
McLaughlin had been in and out of the Pickens County jail about a dozen times on charges ranging from drug possession to assaulting a police officer to shoplifting. He was currently awaiting trial on first-degree burglary and grand larceny charges.
