Georgia Police Say Man Who Killed 5 People in South Carolina Was High on Drugs

A man using drugs who hadn’t slept in days shot and killed five people in a South Carolina home where people gathered to get high, a sheriff said Tuesday.

James Douglas Drayton, 24, was arrested on Monday in Burke County, Georgia, after crashing during a police chase, said Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright at a news conference. Drayton was driving a car taken from the home where the shooting took place in the city of Inman, the sheriff said.

James Douglas Drayton

Burke County deputies said they chased Drayton after he tried to rob a convenience store at gunpoint and kidnap an employee. {snip}

Wright said Drayton confessed to the killings, telling police that he was high on methamphetamine, hadn’t slept for four days and handed over the gun he said he used to kill everyone in the home where he was also staying.

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Drayton is being held in the Burke County jail awaiting extradition. He will be charged with five counts of murder, authorities said. {snip}

The killings happened Sunday at a home where people frequently went to use drugs, Wright said.

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Four of the victims have been identified. They are Thomas Ellis Anderson, 37; Adam Daniel Morley, 32; Mark Allen Hewitt, 59; and Roman Christean Megael Rocha, 19 {snip}

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