This is the story of Michael Shornock's tragic demise on Little Creek Road in Henderson County North Carolina.  

 If ever there was a classic true story of youthful fun loving innocence gone wrong this is it. Labelled a fugitive survivalist, Mike had grown up hunting and >>>>

nov 27 1986 upi archives

EDNEYVILLE, N.C. -- A fugitive survivalist, whose three-state crime spree was called a 'form of suicide' by his mother, wounded two lawman and was killed in a shootout when a posse found him in a barn on Sugarloaf Mountain.

The posse surrounded foggy Sugarloaf and Gilliam mountains and gradually closed in on the suspect, who was holed up in an abandoned barn. Suddenly the officers who checked out the barn Wednesday 'were fired upon by Michael Shornock,' the Henderson County Sheriff's Department said.

'Michael Shornock then apparently exited the barn and engaged in an exchange of gunfire with the tactical teams. As a result of the exchange of gunfire, Michael Shornock was fatally wounded,' the sheriff's department said.

David Wooten and Steve Myers, agents with North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation, 'were both shot in the barn, then Shornock apparently ran from the scene. When Shornock ran from the barn, that's when he was shot,' SBI spokesman Dick Brown said

Shornock, 21, described by family and friends as a 'Rambo-type' survivalist who would not be taken alive, was last seen early Tuesday, when he ambushed and wounded a Henderson County sheriff's deputy and fled on foot into the rugged wilderness, eluding the posse that grew to 400 searchers and frightening the mountain community of about 100 people.

'What we are talking about here is 500 people with relieved minds,' a sheriff's spokesman said when the manhunt ended.

The posse of federal, state and local officers had trailed Shornock with bloodhounds and helicopters since Saturday night, when he allegedly shot and killed one man and wounded another at a party and fired at a sheriff's deputy.

Shornock was paroled several months ago from a five-year sentence for larceny and his mother had predicted he would not be captured alive because 'he knows they're talking about big-time prison now.'

'I don't know what he'll do for sure, but he said he would never go back to prison,' Ann Shornock had said. 'I figure he's serious and this all was just a form of suicide.'

The state agents shot by Shornock were hospitalized. Wooten was in stable condition with a gunshot wound in the abdomen and Myers was in good condition with an arm wound, authorities said.

Authorities said Shornock's crime spree also included stealing guns and a pickup truck in Jacksonville, N.C., in September, then fleeing to Florida in a stolen boat; breaking into a woman's home in Port Orange, Fla., shooting her dog and forcing her at gunpoint to make him dinner; robbing a bank and shooting at a law enforcement officer in coastal North Carolina last Friday; and breaking into a house and stealing the family's vehicle Monday.

Authorities in Brunswick, Ga., wanted to question him about a slaying that occurred while he was returning from Florida to North Carolina.