A suspect in last week’s double homicide in Union County, who died following a shootout with a Cherokee County sheriff’s deputy, actually killed himself, according to the GBI Medical Examiner.
It was initially believed that the unidentified deputy fired the shot that killed Anthony Payne, 34, early Friday morning, but an autopsy revealed the Blairsville man shot himself in the head, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.
The parolee — who was released from prison in October after serving 16 months for various theft charges — allegedly shot his father and stepmother inside the Nottley Dam Road home they shared in Union County. A relative discovered Charles and Louise Payne’s dead bodies and saw that their Ford F-150 was missing.
GBI investigators, working in tandem with Union County deputies, quickly identified Anthony Payne as the suspect, Bankhead said. They believed he was driving to the home of an acquaintance in Canton.
Cherokee deputies were notified to be on the lookout for Payne late Thursday night. Around 11 p.m., a deputy spotted the missing pickup on Toonigh Road near Morgan Road, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Jay Baker said.
Payne had abandoned the vehicle and was located traveling on foot en route to the acquaintance’s home in the 700 block of Swan Lane. Baker said deputies were waiting for him when he arrived at the residence.
“The suspect displayed a weapon and refused to comply with a deputy’s command to drop the weapon,” Baker said. “Both the deputy and the suspect fired their weapons.”
Payne sustained a gunshot wound in the arm. The deputy was not hit.
The GBI has not completed its probe into the shootout, Bankhead said, and the agency is still investigating the Union County homicides along with sheriff’s deputies.
The suspect had served three separate prison stints for burglary, drug and theft convictions. Payne’s parole was supposed to last until August 2014, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
—Staff writers Mike Morris and Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
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