Pickens woman shot to death, niece kidnapped and killed

By Jason Evans

Staff Reporter

jevans@thepccourier.com

PICKENS — A community already in shock over the shooting death of a 54-year-old woman and her niece’s kidnapping was struck another blow Saturday, when police found the suspect and the kidnapping victim dead in North Carolina.

In a release, Pickens Police Chief Travis Riggs said his agency and the Columbus County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Office learned Saturday that the suspect, Marco Vaught, and the kidnapped woman, Rebecca Purry, were possibly at Vaught’s Columbus County home.

Rebecca Purry went to the Pickens Police Department at 3 p.m. April 16 and told officers her ex-boyfriend, Vaught, had called her and “made threats to come to her house and get her,” Riggs

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