Trooper Down! (32 page)

“We had a meeting,” said Case, “and decided there was a strong possibility Shornook was still on the mountain. One of our investigators had seen a man dressed in a black leather jacket walk into an orchard high up on Sugarloaf and then disappear. We were sure it was him.”

A short time later, felony warrants for assault on a law enforcement officer were issued for Michael John Shornook, described as a white male, five feet eight, with medium-brown, shoulder-length hair.

Till now, the double shootings and general ruckus at Miller's birthday party had been Henderson County's business, handled—and handled well—primarily by the local sheriff's department. But as the case began to grow in scope and complexity, county law enforcement officials realized they needed help. A fugitive—heavily armed and potentially dangerous—was loose on a rnountaintop dotted with dozens of homes.

To get him down would take a major manhunt.

One of the first agencies called to assist was the state highway patrol.

By Sunday night, troopers all over western North Carolina were being notified to report for duty.

Trooper Leah Weirick had been shopping. Her phone was ringing when she walked into the house.

“How are you?” said her first sergeant.

“Fine, sir, how are you?” Weirick responded, aware that something was up. First sergeants didn't normally call just to pass the time of day.

“We've got a manhunt under way and we want you to go,” he said.

Oh god, Weirick thought. She was scheduled to be off the next day. This would no doubt alter her plans.

“Sure,” she said, “just tell rne where and when.”

In Asheville, Trooper David Miller had worked a regular weekend shift and was home resting when his sergeant called and said to meet him at the Edneyville fire department at four o'clock Monday, the next morning.

Trooper Keith Lovin, in Robbinsville, had been gone for the weekend and knew nothing about the series of events taking place in Edneyville. When his sergeant called at 10:00
P.M. 
and told him to report for duty within the next few hours, he began preparing for the 100-mile trip to Edneyville.

His assignment, along with David Miller and several other patrolmen, was to stake out a gravel road just below Mountain Home Baptist Church—less than half a mile from where the party had taken place Saturday night.

“Our job was to stand outside the patrol car and watch the bank,” said Miller. “We all decided we'd load our shotguns with buckshot and if he came out shooting, or one of us saw him, we'd shoot back.”

Not much happened all day Monday.

Fresh footprints and other signs had led officials to believe Shornook had returned to the car sometime during Sunday night, took food and ammunition, and slipped back into the woods. Throughout the day, six roadblocks were manned over a twenty-mile area, while twenty-five members of a tactical team combed the area on foot. Besides sheriffs department and highway patrol personnel, there were SWAT teams, fire department volunteers, state wildlife officers, State Bureau of Investigation officials, and between thirty and sixty
people from the state's Department of Correction Prison Emergency Response Team. In addition, a sheriff's department search plane and the highway patrol's helicopter were brought in to help scan the mountain.

Armed guards were everywhere—even riding the school buses in case Shornook decided to hijack a busload of children.

It was, as one trooper put it, “like a military operation. We had been briefed on Shornook's prior ambush tactics and knew he wouldn't hesitate to fire on an officer. So the atmosphere was extremely tense. We felt like we were in a war zone.”

Adding to the sense of uneasiness was the lack of a central law enforcement communications system which would allow one agency to talk with another without having to relay information. Troopers were at a particular disadvantage because not only were they tied to their car radios, but they had little of the proper equipment necessary for conducting an extended manhunt over rugged mountain terrain. Most of the patrolmen had to wear their slick-soled regulation shoes, totally impractical for tracking through the woods, bright-yellow rain slickers—making them perfect targets—and for firearm protection, carry what they had been issued in patrol school, a .357 Magnum and a shotgun. Neither was particularly effective against Shornook's high-powered, long-range rifle and the other weapons he reportedly had.

Some Sugarloaf residents were better prepared to face Shornook than the officers assigned to protect them. Those living in the area were asked to leave, but few complied.

“We're just keeping our eyes open and our guns loaded,” said one long-time homeowner.

About four-thirty Monday afternoon, troopers Joey Reece and Gib Clements had parked their cruisers on a dead-end road and were sitting in the woods, watching for unusual movement. Suddenly a twig snapped.

The two men looked at each other.

“Did you hear that?” said Reece.

Clements nodded.

“You go down the road and I'll go around the ridge,” whispered Reece. Moments later, they met up.

“I know I heard something,” said Reece. Then he stopped, bent down, and glanced upwards. “Come here, Gib. Does that look like a man to you?”

Fifty to sixty yards ahead, Reece had caught a glimpse of what appeared to be someone wearing a blue cap.

“We better call in
now,
” said Clements

While Clements waited, Reece returned to his patrol car and notified the command post of the sighting.

Within minutes, the highway patrol helicopter was hovering over the area. The pilot reported that he, too, saw someone in the woods with a blue cap. It was the first good lead in the case since Shornook had disappeared into the woods Saturday night.

Immediately, the perimeter was adjusted and Shornook's deadly game plan—the one in which he “thumbed his nose at authority”—began in earnest.

Around 7:00
P.M.
that night, a hungry, tired Shornook walked up on Ivory Marshall's front porch and, at gunpoint, asked for the keys to Marshall's car.

“He didn't give us that much trouble,” Mrs. Marshall said later. “He wasn't trying to kill us or anything. In fact, he talked pretty friendly.”

Before driving away in the couple's orange and white Jeep, he took some food, left a hundred-dollar bill on the table, then jerked the phone from the wall. Marshall reported the break-in from an extension phone in another room.

Less than a mile away, troopers David Miller and David Gladden were manning the same dirt road at which they had been stationed all day.

“It was getting dark and we knew someone would relieve us soon,” said Miller. “We had heard about the sighting but thought it was a good distance from us. I got in my patrol car and was preparing to leave when I caught the report on the radio that an orange and white Jeep had been stolen. That's usually what happens during a manhunt. After the area is cordoned off, the fugitive commits a crime—breaks into a home or steals a car—in order to get away.”

Nearby, Trooper Gary Cook had heard the same report. Assigned to patrol the road leading to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, he had gotten hungry and stopped for something to eat at a church. A field command post had been set up on the church grounds and food brought in for the officers.

“I was standing in the parking lot chewing on a piece of fried chicken,” said Cook, “when something came over the radio about a
suspect stealing a Jeep and coming out a dirt road at Mountain Home Church. I looked around and saw a sign that said, ‘Mountain Home Church.' I thought, ‘Wait a minute! That's where I am! And I'm the only trooper here!'”

Cook radioed his position to officers at another command post and was instructed by a first sergeant to block the main intersection at the church. Help, he was told, was on the way.

Within minutes, troopers David Miller and David Gladden were pulling in. Miller positioned his patrol car nose-to-nose with Cook's cruiser, forming a “V” to block the road.

Almost immediately, they were joined by Trooper Keith Lovin. The men stood outside their vehicles, guns drawn, waiting in the dark.

“The plan,” said Miller, “was to ambush Shornook as he came over the hilltop towards the church. About that time, a farmer who'd been standing in the church parking lot walked over to us and told us there was another road above the church that Shornook could turn onto. So we moved up about 500 feet where the dirt roads connected. We were just getting out of our cars when I looked up and saw a vehicle, its headlights on, coming around the curve.”

Shornook, driving the stolen Jeep, had spotted the patrol cars straight ahead and veered to the right. He spun off the dirt road into the church cemetery and wheeled around, heading back in the direction from which he came.

A sudden crack of gunfire split the air. Realizing they were being shot at, the officers jumped in the two patrol cars—Miller and Lovin in front, Cook and Gladden behind—and took off after the departing vehicle. In the glow from their headlights, they could tell it fit the description of the stolen Jeep.

Instinctively, Lovin reached up and turned on the blue light and siren.

“Turn off that goddammed siren so I can hear the radio!” snapped Miller.

“G-437, G-437 is in pursuit with Lovin,” Miller radioed the command post. “We're going back the way he came.”

Each time Shornook rounded a curve on the road, he'd slow down, lean out the window, and fire from a .30-caliber carbine. He was also carrying a .223 Mini-14, two .45-caliber pistols, and a 9-mm pistol. Every few rounds, he'd alternate weapons.

“We've been shot at! We've been shot at!” Miller yelled into the radio mike. “We've been hit! We're still in pursuit!”

One round hit the front bumper, came up through the hood, and struck the windshield wiper. Another grazed the fender, while a third bullet hit the condenser on the car's air-conditioning unit.

Neither Miller, intent on maneuvering the dark, narrow mountain road, nor Lovin, who was trying to get an accurate aim at the speeding car ahead, fully realized how much danger they were in.

“Everything happened so fast,” said Miller. “We could see the flashes and smell the gunpowder but there was no real sensation of fear. We were too busy concentrating on other things.”

Miller knew that Shornook's history included ambush tactics.

“To prevent him from stopping and firing on us as we got to him, I tried to stay on his tail. I thought if I could get close enough to intimidate him, he might stop.”

In the patrol car behind Miller, Cook and Gladden had the difficult task of staying near enough to provide support for the two troopers in front, while attempting to fire at the Jeep ahead.

“I didn't want to crash into Miller if he had to stop suddenly,” said Cook. “But at the same time, I wanted to stay up with him. There were times I was so close my front bumper was right up against his car.”

“My greatest fear,” said Gladden, “was that I would run out of ammunition. I couldn't remember if I had put a live shell in the chamber of my shotgun, so I loaded and unloaded it at least four times to make sure.”

Armed only with a shotgun and a .357 Magnum pistol, Gladden knew that neither of his weapons was an equal match for Shornook's firepower.

“It was like throwing rocks at an elephant,” he said.

In the pitch-black darkness, Cook saw a flash in the window of Miller's cruiser, directly in front of Lovin's head.

A fourth bullet, fired from the Jeep, had burst through the patrol car windshield, landed on the dashboard, and exploded in front of Lovin. Shattered glass flew into Lovin's eyes, while a piece of lead— a fragment from the bullet—settled on his coat collar.

Unaware at first that Lovin had been hit, Miller reached up and flicked the glass from his own hair. Then he glanced at Lovin, who was falling forward.

“I reached out and grabbed him,” said Miller. “He was talking and there was no sign of blood, so I knew he wasn't hurt real bad. Part of me wanted to continue with the chase, but since I had slowed down to check on Lovin, we had lost sight of the Jeep. So, tactically, we were not in as good a position as we were before. We knew nothing about the road, either, where it ended, or if it was a dead end.”

Lovin, now blinded in one eye, spoke up.

“Let's stop and break it off right here.”

Miller, frustrated at losing Shornook, continued on.

“Stop, David. I need to stop!” he said. Miller braked and Lovin rolled out of the passenger's side and onto the ground.

“I didn't think my eyes were hurt too bad,” Lovin recalled, “but every time I'd blink, I could feel the glass grinding. It was very, very painful.”

Cook, who had pulled in behind Miller, believed Lovin had been killed. His first reaction was anger.

“We've got another man dead,” he thought. “What are we doing out here chasing this outlaw? He's doesn't know us, and we don't know him, yet he's trying to kill us. It doesn't make any sense.”

All three troopers rushed over to Lovin and asked if he was all right. Despite his intense pain, he assured them that he was.

Concerned that Shornook might come back shooting, the officers left Miller's patrol car sitting with the headlights on while they retreated to Cook's cruiser. Their first priority was getting some help— both medical attention for Lovin and backup support for themselves.

By radio, Miller notified the command post of their location. The combination of rugged terrain, heavy darkness, and unfamiliarity with the region led to more than a little confusion in getting other officers to the scene.

“It's the dirt road that leads from the church going back to wherever the Jeep was stopped,” Miller said. “We're northwest from the church. We're out of sight of him now. We've lost sight of the vehicle.”