Kidnapping suspect kills himself after barricade inside home, SC cops say
A standoff with a wanted man who barricaded himself inside a South Carolina residence Tuesday ended when the suspect killed himself, according to a news release from the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect was identified as Charles Eugene Van Norman II, the sheriff’s office reported in the news release.
Deputies went to arrest the 42-year-old at 1 p.m. on “kidnapping and domestic violence” charges, the sheriff’s office said in the news release.
When law enforcement arrived, Van Norman went inside a residence on Pine Grove Lane in Berea, where he was barricaded, the news release states.
Members of the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team were on scene and tried to contact Van Norman for several hours, before using tear gas to force him outside, according to the news release.
The sheriff’s office said when the efforts failed to force out Van Norman, deputies entered the home around 5 p.m. and discovered he died from “a self-inflicted gun shot wound,” per the news release. He “was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
The sheriff’s office and Greenville County Coroner’s Office will continue to investigate the incident and Van Norman’s death.
Van Norman was named in arrest warrants after a Monday incident, where he entered a woman’s home “and threatened to kill her,” the sheriff’s office reported in the news release. He was armed with a box cutter and prevented the woman from leaving and hit “her multiple times,” before she escaped through a window and called for help, the sheriff’s office reported.
This story was originally published January 8, 2019 at 5:15 PM.
