GREAT CACAPON, W.Va. — Pennsylvania police arrested a man early Tuesday morning in connection with a triple homicide that took place near Cacapon State Park in West Virginia Monday afternoon.
Police made the arrest in Pennsylvania with the help of Morgan County deputies and West Virginia State Police. Reports identified the alleged shooter as Erick Shute, 32, of Great Cacapon, but formerly of Pennsville, NJ.
A 911 call dispatched the sheriff’s department to Valley High Timber Farm around 4:45 p.m. Monday. Deputies responded on high alert fearing there was an active shooter at the scene. It turned out the shooter had fled, but deputies discovered three bodies all dead of gunshot wounds. The names of the men killed have not been released.
Morgan County Sheriff Vince Shambaugh identified Shute to MetroNews as a “sovereign citizen” and said he had filed a number of complaints against the victims including property disputes. The victims were shot dead while clearing wood and debris from the roadway adjacent to Shute’s property. Shambaugh said Shute ambushed the men with a rifle from a wooded area nearby.
One victim was able to flee the scene and was not injured.
Shambaugh said the property is a weekend home for Shute who also owns property in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He posted to social media the shooting was in self defense. Shambaugh says he believes Shute was building a compound on the property near Great Cacapon.
Shute made the following post to his Facebook page:
“This was self defense. I talked to a cop and he even agreed this was an open and shut case of self defense and they probably won’t even pursue charges. I am just waiting to talk to the prosecutor. I have nothing to hide. Media can contact me on my cell. I am open to talk. These guys stole over $20,000 pf oir (sic) stuff and sold it for drugs and threatened me to my face before. They even unacrewed (sic) my brakeline while I was asleep. Everyone not on drugs on the mountain hates them. These are known thieves and drug addicts.”
The incident touched off an eight-hour manhunt in the region before Shute was located in Pennsylvania at just after midnight Tuesday morning.
Shute is known to New Jersey authorities. He was in the middle of a controversy in 2009 in Salem County, NJ, when he hung a flag upside down as a “signal of distress” for America. Shute claimed the government was corrupt. In 2011, he was indicted by a New Jersey grand jury on charges of attacking a police officer and resisting arrest.
More information is expected to be released on the incident later Tuesday.