Man accused of killing 5 people in South Carolina before being caught was allegedly on meth and had been awake for days, authorities say
By Jamiel Lynch and Melissa Alonso, CNN
A man accused of killing five people in South Carolina was arrested in neighboring Georgia after he allegedly committed another crime, authorities said Tuesday.
Deputies arrested James Douglas Drayton of Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Monday after he robbed a gas station with a weapon, according to a release from the sheriff’s office in Burke County, Georgia.
Investigators then learned that Drayton, 24, was a suspect in the killings of five people the day before in Inman, South Carolina.
He is expected to face five murder charges in South Carolina, along with four counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said. The victims had been shot, Wright said.
Drayton admitted to Spartanburg County investigators who traveled to Georgia that he had killed the victims, according to the Burke County news release.
“I don’t have answers to why,” Wright said at a news conference.
According to Burke County jail records, Drayton is being held without bail. It is unknown if he has an attorney.
On Sunday, Spartanburg County deputies responded to a home in Inman on a death call, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies found four bodies and one person showing “signs of life,” but the fifth victim died at a hospital, officials with the sheriff’s office said.
The victims and the suspect were all drug users, Wright told reporters, and described them as “addicts.” The victims lived at the home and Drayton had been staying there for two weeks.
The suspect had been using methamphetamine before the killings in South Carolina and was awake “for like four days,” the sheriff said.
Drayton was captured after a chase in Georgia and authorities recovered a gun, Wright said. Authorities would follow “the process of what Georgia does” before bringing the suspect back to South Carolina, he said.
Burke County is about 140 miles south of Spartanburg County.
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