KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee state leaders will soon make an extradition request to South Carolina authorities for Nicholas Wayne Hamlett.
Don Bosch, a criminal defense lawyer based in Knoxville, said an extradition request is also called a "fugitive from justice request" or "governor's warrant" in Tennessee law. They're fairly common and other states can make the request to Tennessee. It will affect Hamlett's trial.
"That’s actually something the jury can hear in his trial for murder. They can hear that he fled in order to avoid prosecution and consider that evidence of guilt," Bosch said.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Department, along with the U.S. Marshals and Federal Bureau of Investigation, among others, alleged that Hamlett killed Steven Douglas Lloyd near Cherohala Skyway on or around the night of Oct. 18.
After three weeks of searching, including an alleged sighting in Chapin, South Carolina, on Halloween, police in Columbia arrested Hamlett at a hospital after a nurse recognized him.
David Jolley, the U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Tennessee, said the investigation has revealed a pattern of identity theft and violent crime committed by Hamlett in several states over many years.
"He lived under the identity of another man for 6 years. Most of the people we’ve encountered in this investigation did not even know him as Nicholas Wayne Hamlett. They knew him as Brandon Andrade," Jolley said.
Law enforcement leaders have alleged that Hamlett stole the identity of Brandon Andrade during an early crime and used the name while living in East Tennessee. They said Hamlett used the name when he spoke with 911 dispatchers and deputies from the Knox County Sheriff's Office and left identification with that name at the scene of the alleged murder.
They said Hamlett, while claiming to be Andrade, told 911 dispatch that he had fallen off a cliff while running from a bear. The investigation has found that Steven Lloyd Douglas was actually the victim. He died from blunt force trauma to the head.