On a Saturday afternoon in August, 34-year-old Sharmine Pack was at Auto Doctors, an auto repair shop on South Pike Road East in Sumter, South Carolina, when a vehicle pulled up. A man, later identified as 38-year-old Demetrius Alexander Brown, got out and exchanged a few words with Pack. The conversation was brief and, according to witnesses, did not escalate into an argument before Brown suddenly opened fire, shooting Pack at least once.
After Pack fell to the ground, the shooter stood
over him and fired several more times. The gunman then fled the area. Emergency services were called to the scene around 4:30 p.m., and Pack was rushed to Palmetto Health Tuomey, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.
The Sumter County Sheriff's Office quickly identified Demetrius Alexander Brown as the suspect in the fatal shooting. Investigators learned that the motive for the shooting was a dispute over a car purchase, with suggestions of fraudulent activity involved in the transaction. Brown, described as a bald Black male, approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing around 300 pounds, became the subject of a multi-state manhunt, with law enforcement agencies in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Texas on alert. He was considered armed and extremely dangerous.
The search for Brown intensified after he was spotted in Jackson County, Georgia, where he managed to evade capture after a short police chase. The U.S. Marshals Service joined the effort to locate him, and a nationwide alert was issued. The manhunt came to an end the following Wednesday when authorities apprehended Brown in Jacksonville, Florida. He waived extradition and was returned to South Carolina, where he was formally charged with murder and held at the Sumter County Detention Center to await a bond hearing. In addition to the murder charge, Brown was also charged with two counts of forgery related to the fraudulent purchase of a camper and a truck.
