UPDATE: Former NFL player Phillip Adams named as suspect in deadly South Carolina shooting. Read more here.
[Editor’s note: Dr. Robert Lesslie was an elder in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP). One ARP member remarked, “He was involved in Camp Joy and many other things around our denomination.” Another recalled, “My first memory of Dr. Lesslie was hearing him play bagpipes as the wake up call for Camp Joy at Bonclarken!”]
York County Coroner Sabrina Gast identified the victims found dead in the house as: Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70; his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69; Adah Lesslie, 9; and Noah Lesslie, 5. James Lewis, 39, of Gastonia, N.C., was found dead outside the home, Gast said. Lewis was working at the house when he was killed.
Five people were killed Wednesday and a sixth wounded in York County in a mass shooting, and a suspect was caught in a manhunt that ended early Thursday, officials said.
The victims included a prominent Rock Hill doctor and his wife, two of their grandchildren, and a worker who was at the doctor’s Marshall Road home outside Rock Hill where the shootings took place, police and coroner officials said.
York County Sheriff’s Office deputies said an eight-hour manhunt ended around 1 a.m. at a home near where the shooting happened.
York County Coroner Sabrina Gast identified the victims found dead in the house as: Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70; his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69; Adah Lesslie, 9; and Noah Lesslie, 5.
James Lewis, 39, of Gastonia, N.C., was found dead outside the home, Gast said. Lewis was working at the house when he was killed, Gast said.
A sixth person was shot, sheriff’s office spokesman Trent Faris said. That person, whose name has not been released, was airlifted to a Charlotte hospital. That person’s condition was unavailable.
Law enforcement officials used helicopter search lights Wednesday night as they tracked a suspect in connection with a mass shooting near Rock Hill, S.C. Tracy Kimball
THE VICTIMS
Robert Lesslie had practiced medicine in York County for decades, with a specialty in emergency room medicine. He was medical director of the Emergency Room at Piedmont Medical Center for 15 years and worked at several other Charlotte-area hospitals, according to his biography from his medical practice.
He was medical director of Riverview House Calls & Riverview Hospice & Palliative Care.
He and Barbara Lesslie had been married more than 40 years.
Lesslie was a legend in health care in Rock Hill, and authored books on emergency room work and workers.
When he published the book “Angels in the ER” in 2008, Robert Lesslie told The Herald an emergency room doctor learns about people and from people during every shift.
“I’ve been an observer of human condition as well as a physician. There’s no better place to be an observer than the ER. You find out what people are about. Everybody has something to teach us. I wanted to do this from a spiritual perspective. Once that became clear to me, it wrote itself.”
Friends of the Lesslies described the couple as caring, loving members of the community who had served the public through the medical practice and in other ways for decades.