Cherokee, NC: Suspect in Cherokee hotel death kills himself

BY JON OSTENDORFF • JANUARY 2, 2011
CHEROKEE — The Swain County man who killed a woman outside the hotel where she worked and injured her sister shot himself in Georgia after firing at police who were trying to capture him, said Chief Ben Reed of the Cherokee Indian Police Department on Saturday.

John Fredrick Stanley killed Lori Stanley, also of Swain County, outside the Quality Inn in Cherokee, Reed said.

He could not provide her sister's name though he said she had been in stable condition at the hospital.

Stanley fled after the shooting. Officers stopped him late Friday night near Dalton, Ga. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being airlifted to a hospital, the police chief said.

Reed said the shooting was a case of domestic violence and that the couple had a troubled relationship.

The shooting happened on the Cherokee Indian Reservation though the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation was handling the case because it involved violence between two people who were not enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.