Survival Expert Slain After Hunt by 400 Officers

A bank robbery suspect and backwoods survival expert who eluded police for three months was killed Wednesday in a rugged stretch of mountains in a gun battle that left two police officers wounded.

The early afternoon showdown began when Michael John Shornock opened fire with a .30-caliber carbine on about a dozen officers who were checking a barn on an apple farm, said Capt. George Erwin of the Henderson County sheriff’s office.

One officer, shot in the abdomen, was later hospitalized in stable condition. A second officer was wounded in the arm.

Erwin said Shornock then ran from the barn, where officers believe he had spent the night, and was felled with one shot in a ravine about 50 yards away.

Dense Thickets

More than 400 officers had combed dense rhododendron and laurel thickets on fog-shrouded Sugar Loaf Mountain for Shornock since Sunday.

Shornock, 21, of Swansboro, was charged with robbing a bank in Cape Carteret and firing on an officer during his escape from the coastal community Friday and shooting at a deputy’s car Saturday in Henderson County. He also was sought by authorities in Florida.

A deputy was shot in the face Tuesday while searching a field for Shornock’s tracks, and a state trooper with him escaped injury when a bullet was deflected off an ammunition clip in his pocket.

A three-month search for Shornock began in September when Onslow County authorities spotted a man acting suspiciously. Police believe Shornock disappeared into the Croatan National Forest, then stole a boat and fled to Florida.

In mid-October, a man fitting Shornock’s description broke into a home in Port Orange, Fla., shot the owner’s dog and forced her to make dinner for him.

He was spotted in swamps in Brevard County, Fla., and was later seen on a motorcycle near the St. Johns River. When a deputy fired at the suspect, he jumped into the river and eluded a three-day search by 50 Florida officers.