The shooting death of a technician at a North Carolina community college is being investigated as a possible hate crime, police said Tuesday.
The announcement came after a suspect, Kenneth Morgan Stancil III, a former work-study student, was found sleeping on a Florida beach, ending an hours-long manhunt.
Stancil had a “calculated plan” to kill Ron Lane, a Wayne Community College print shop technician, said Sgt. Jeremy Sutton of the Goldsboro police.
He said police were investigating whether Lane had made romantic advances on Stancil. Lane was Stancil’s supervisor in the print shop, where Stancil worked until he was dismissed in February for poor attendance, said Kay Albertson, the school's president.
Lane was killed on Monday. Authorities first looked for Stancil on the North Carolina campus. Then they found his motorcycle on Interstate 95 and alerted agencies along the East Coast to keep a look out for him, Sutton said.
In Florida, officers from the Volusia County Beach Patrol approached Stancil for violating a ban on sleeping on the beach and took him in because he was carrying a knife. He gave his name and was arrested without incident, authorities said.
Stancil was held in Daytona Beach on a murder charge, and officials were working together to extradite him to North Carolina, Sutton said.
