NEWBERRY, S.C. - A 16-year-old wanted in the killing of his father in Tennessee hid from police dogs, officers and helicopters in central South Carolina with three of his friends for 10 hours Thursday before they were caught, police said.
The four teens planned to go to Myrtle Beach, but that trip was derailed around 5:30 a.m. when a trooper spotted their van at a rest area and started a chase that ended in a wreck and the suspects running into the woods, according to the police account.
The search ended around 3:30 p.m. when a strawberry farmer saw teens hiding in one of his fields. He called police, and the teens ran when they heard law enforcement approaching, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.
A helicopter followed them and they stopped running, waiting for officers to catch up and take them into custody. The suspects, two 15-year-old boys and a 16-year-old boy and girl, were scratched up from running but not seriously hurt, Foster said.
"They all ran," Foster said. "And they all stuck together."
Officers had worried the suspects, who are 15 and 16 years old, were heavily armed. They took at least eight guns from Tennessee, and four pistols were missing from their van after it crashed, Foster said. But no guns were found on them when they were arrested and one of the suspects told deputies they threw the pistols into a creek.