Police call off manhunt; shooting suspects remain at large

A five-hour-long manhunt for suspects linked to a shooting and home invasion on Glenns Bay Road Tuesday was called off about 5 p.m. in the Deerfield Plantation community after police and K9s searched the area where a vehicle likely linked to the suspects was found abandoned.

Horry County police were called to a townhouse at 1410 Glenns Bay Road near Surfside Beach for a shooting around noon. One man had been shot and was transported to Grand Strand Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, according to a release from the Horry County Police Department.

“I heard a man yelling, ‘He shot me in the head!,’” said Tom Muirhead, who lives a few doors down from where the shooting took place. Muirhead said he didn’t hear the shots.

Bullet holes riddled the front of the Glenns Bay Road townhouse. The glass top of a storm door was shattered.

According to our Grand Strand News Alliance Partner, WPDE, a witness inside the townhouse said he and another person were getting ready to go somewhere and had put their rent money on a counter inside. The resident said he went up to take a shower, heard a dog barking, came downstairs and heard gunshots. He told WPDE that he saw four men take the money and run.

The witness said one of his friends faced the men and was shot in the head, according to WPDE.

Four unknown black males fled the scene and were initially tracked to the area of the Deerfield Plantation subdivision where they had crashed a vehicle, according to the HCPD release.

Police searched around homes and fields in the gated community off of Dick Pond Road near Surfside Beach for several hours Tuesday afternoon. A Chevrolet SUV, its undercarriage tangled with metal, was found abandoned near 1943 Lakeview Circle. Police say the vehicle was apparently disabled after suspects crashed through a gate at the end the road.

Officers, unable to find the suspects, called off the search a few hours later.

Jackie Efird, who lives near the abandoned vehicle on Lakeview Circle, came home to find her fence and a bench in her backyard damaged.

Efird said she was returning from a doctor’s appointment in Conway to find police surrounding her home. An officer asked her if anyone was inside, she said.

Her son, Shane Lindsay, was in the house, but he said he was asleep and didn’t know anything had happened until his girlfriend saw his home on the news.

Efird went to let her dogs out in her backyard when she got home and saw the top of her wooden fence broken and the wooden bench underneath it crumbled. Another chain link fence that runs the other edge of her yard to the lake that borders it was trampled.

“At this point they’re still looking through the whole development,” she said on Tuesday afternoon. “We’re just told to stay in the home until the matter is resolved.”

All residents in the Deerfield Plantation community and the surrounding area were advised to stay in their homes with doors and windows locked as police searched for the shooting suspects.

Horry County police Officer K. Marcus said a recorded message with the advisory had been sent to homes with registered landlines and cellphones in the area around 1 p.m. Tuesday.

“This is shocking,” said Jodie King, who lives a few doors down from where the shooting occurred on Glenns Bay Road. “It’s normally quiet here.”

Surfside Beach police were assisting the Horry County police in the search.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Police call off manhunt; shooting suspects remain at large."