Earl Valentine had just critically injured his ex-wife and killed his namesake son in North Carolina, authorities said. He was somewhere on a dark road, possibly driving to Richmond to kill his former in-laws.
(WashingtonPost)- That’s when Valentine went on Facebook and started broadcasting live.
“She lied on me, had warrants taken out on me,” he told the camera early Tuesday, as he divided his gaze between the phone and the road. “She drug me all the way down to nothing. I loved my wife, but she deserved what she had coming.”
In his chilling Facebook livestream, which was later reposted on YouTube, Valentine acknowledged that the violent chain of events he started could end in his own death.
“Pleasure knowing all y’all,” he said. “I’ve been very sick for months. And this is something that I could not help. So I don’t know if I’m gonna make it where I’m going, but if I don’t, I wish all of you a good life.”
Police in Norlina, a town of 1,100 people just south of the North Carolina-Virginia state line, spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to unravel what caused Valentine allegedly to kick in the door of his ex-wife’s single-story home and open fire — and then admit to the crime on social media.
Authorities from the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service joined local and regional law enforcement agencies in a manhunt stretching from Virginia to South Carolina, Norlina Police Chief Taylor Bartholomew told The Washington Post on Wednesday afternoon.
Within hours, authorities located Valentine at a motel in Columbia, S.C., about 280 miles south of Norlina. Officials said Valentine committed suicide after being surrounded. He was pronounced dead at the scene.