By NOELLE PHILLIPS / McClatchy-Tribune News Service
RED BANK, S.C. -- A 911 caller knew something horrible was about to happen when he heard a drunk and agitated Chancey Foy Smith load ammunition into a gun.
"He hears Smith in another room like he's racking a gun," Lexington County Sheriff James R. Metts said.
The friend told the Lexington County dispatcher to send deputies in a hurry because Smith wanted to kill his ex-girlfriend. A few minutes later, the same caller told a dispatcher that Smith had left his home and was headed to the girlfriend's house.
Not knowing where the girlfriend lived, the caller stayed on the phone with the dispatcher as he followed Smith to the woman's house. Upon arriving on Farm Chase Drive in Red Bank, dispatchers urged the caller to get close enough to read the house number.
The caller did and began backing away, Metts said.
"Then he reports he hears a crackling noise inside the house," Metts said.
Deputies arrived within seconds, but it was too late to save Amanda Lynne Peake, 27, and her children, 9-year-old Cameron Peake and 6-year-old Sarah Peake. The shooting spree ended when Smith, 32, turned the gun on himself and died.
Now, friends and family are left to mourn and sort out the triple murder and suicide. Lexington County sheriff's investigators spent Wednesday piecing together what happened between Peake, a young widow, and Smith, her ex-boyfriend.
The story of Peake and Smith began in early December, Metts said.
It was unclear Tuesday how the couple met, but theirs was a fast romance. Shortly after they started dating, Smith moved into Peake's rental house in Red Bank. Peake wore her passion on her skin. The dozens of tattoos and multiple piercings represented her life experiences and her shining personality, friends and family said.
Smith rode motorcycles, the fast kind called "crotch rockets" on the streets. He served as vice president of a club known as "Midlands Most Wanted," Metts said. He was employed at US Foodservice in Lexington County but was on leave because of an on-the-job knee injury.
By mid-February, the relationship was troubled, Metts said.
The couple went on vacation last week to Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Fla. By the time they returned to South Carolina, they were breaking up.
"Whatever happened at the bikers' rally caused the relationship to rupture," Metts said.
On Tuesday, Smith moved out, Metts said. He drank beer throughout the day and appeared to be agitated as he and a friend loaded boxes into Smith's silver Toyota pickup. They made several trips between Peake's house and a residence that Smith maintained in Lexington.
Later that night, Smith sent an alarming text message to a second friend, Metts said.
"It said he was going back to Amanda's house and 'if she doesn't tell me what I want to hear, bad things are going to happen,'" the sheriff said.
The second friend grew concerned and went to Smith's house on Rabon Road. After realizing he could not reason with Smith, the friend called 911 at 9:53 p.m. Over the next 20 minutes, the friend would call 911 three times, said Maj. John Allard, the Sheriff's Department spokesman.
The second call came when Smith left his house, and the third call came after the friend had lost his cell phone signal while following Smith, Allard said.
When deputies arrived at the house at 10:13 p.m., they found Peake dead in her bed. She died from two gunshots to her head, Lexington County Coroner Harry Harman reported. Her children, who were found together in bed, had been shot once each in the head, according to the coroner's report. The girl, Sarah, was dressed in bed clothes but was outside of the comforter. The boy, Cameron, was still in his day clothes, but was huddled underneath the comforter, Allard said.
Deputies found Smith dead at the foot of Peake's bed. He had shot himself in the head with the same .40-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun. Smith had gone to the house with violence on his mind, Metts said.
Deputies found one assault rife, two hunting rifles and more than 200 rounds of ammunition in his truck.
"Smith couldn't take the break off with Peake," Metts said. "He was armed to do whatever it was he wanted to do." On Wednesday morning, Peake's father, brother and a few family friends carried boxes and pictures out of the house. Joshua Hartley, Peake's brother, described his sister as a "very sweet girl." "You couldn't ask for a better sister," he said.
Hartley refused to talk about his sister's relationship with Smith. "I don't wish this on anybody else," he said. "Love your family while you got them." Peake already had faced tragedy in her life. In August 2007, her husband died in a fire at their Winnsboro home. Matthew Peake was a 24-year-old Fairfield County sheriff's deputy and a volunteer firefighter. Amanda Peake and their two children were not home at the time.
Peake recently started working as a body piercer at Magnetizm Tattoo and Body Piercing studios in Columbia, said Gino Cruz, the manager. She was an experienced piercer. And she talked a lot about her children, he said "She was like a human pinup," Cruz said when describing Peake's tattoos.
The designs included a portrait of her mother, flowers and stars.
On a modeling website, Peake advertised herself as head of the modeling department of the Gypsy Queens, a group of female tattoo enthusiasts.
She had 61 tattoos. Peake was willing to pose for pinup photo shoots but would not be a part of sexually explicit images, the website said. Peake would get all of the attention when the tattoo and piercing crew attended special events to publicize the studio, Cruz said.
"She's a gorgeous girl," he said. "In a circle of people, if Amanda was there, she would command the attention. She wore her tattoos well, and she had the personality to match."
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