News
Man wanted in home invasion caught after daylong search
2 Burke residents called in suspicions about hitchhiker
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Published: July 8, 2008
MORGANTON
A man accused of breaking into a home in Catawba County Sunday morning and assaulting its residents and leading police on a chase into parts of Pisgah National Forest in neighboring Burke County has been found.
Law-enforcement officers arrested Matthew Douglas Saunders after getting tips from residents in the Jonas Ridge community of northwestern Burke County.
Law-enforcement officers spent most of Sunday looking for Saunders before suspending the search for the evening.
Yesterday afternoon, two people called the Burke County Sheriff's Office to report a man matching Saunders description hitchhiking on N.C. 181, said Detective David South.
Deputy Scott Bray, whose patrol area includes the Jonas Ridge community, went to the area where the callers said they saw the suspect. When Bray got there, he confronted Saunders, but Saunders ran into the woods, South said.
Bray followed Saunders and was able to talk him into turning himself in, South said.
Saunders took the magazine out of his handgun, emptied the chamber and threw the gun on the ground, South said.
Saunders carried a small pocketknife and small bag that held digital cameras and camera cords. He had no food or water, South said.
Officers with the Long View Police Department issued five warrants against Saunders on Sunday in connection with a home invasion earlier that morning.
He was charged with felony first-degree burglary, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, larceny of a motor vehicle and larceny after breaking and entering.
Police said that a man entered a home on First Avenue Place N.W. around 5 a.m. Sunday, pulled out a gun and ordered the home's residents to crawl from their bedroom to the kitchen.
Officers said that the man then hit the residents in the head with a pistol.
Shortly after, the residents fled the home. The two victims, who police did not identify, refused treatment.
■ Sharon McBrayer is a staff writer for The News Herald in Morganton.
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