Two women and a child were found dead in southern Virginia on Tuesday, and a suspect was apprehended after an hours-long manhunt, police said.
The bodies were discovered about 8 a.m., and hours later, police said that a person of interest had been arrested.
Authorities had said that they were looking for Matthew Bernard, 19, who was said to be armed with a rifle.
Bernard’s uncle, Bryant Bernard, told NBC affiliate WSLS of Roanoke that his nephew was taken into custody and was accused of killing his mother, sister and her child.
“In my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined it. Not him. Of all the people in this world. I never could have imagined it,” Bryant Bernard told WSLS.
The station reported that Matthew Bernard was arrested after running naked from behind a house to a church. A witness said officers pepper-sprayed him while taking him into custody.
The jail said he was being held without bail on three counts of murder early Wednesday.
Tuesday morning, a neighbor reported that someone may have been shot, and when officers arrived, a deputy found a woman dead in the driveway of a home, Pittsylvania County Sheriff Michael W. Taylor said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
The deputy found two other victims inside the home and called for help. More than 100 officers from several law enforcement agencies were involved in the search, which ended with the suspect’s arrest shortly after noon, he said.
The names of the victims have not been released. The sheriff also would not say whether a weapon had been recovered and did not say how the victims died. He said he did not know whether any drugs or alcohol were involved.
“We won’t go into the whys because we don’t know yet. We’re trying to figure that out ourselves,” Taylor said Tuesday afternoon.
Several schools in the area were locked down during the search for the suspect, he said.
“This was a shock to our community — to anybody’s community, when something like this happens,” Taylor said.