A man walked into the emergency room at Spartanburg Medical Center with a gunshot wound while officers happened to be there on an unrelated call, kicking off an investigation that would unravel his own account of what happened to him. By the time it was over, police had a suspect, a recovered weapon and a very different story than the one they were first told.
Officers were already at the hospital in connection to an unrelated incident when the wounded man walked in, according to WSPA 7News. He initially told officers he had been walking down Crescent Avenue near South Church Street when a vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened fire. WSPA reported he said the shots struck him in the upper chest area, though FOX Carolina reported that officers observed the man had been shot in the upper left shoulder area and on the left side of his shoulder.
Police went looking for evidence at the location he described but came up empty. Officers responded to the area where the shooting allegedly took place but found nothing, the station's report states, which only deepened the mystery of what had actually happened to the man.
The Story Falls Apart
That dead end prompted investigators to press further, and the victim's account didn't hold up. Investigators determined the man's initial story was false, and he then gave what the outlet described as the accurate location: an apartment complex on Charlie Mae Campbell Lane. He also named the suspect he said was responsible, according to the same report.
Once officers reached the apartment complex, they found what they described as evidence of a crime scene at the property. A K9 team was brought in to search a nearby wooded area and recovered a weapon suspected of being used in the shooting, per the outlet's account.
Standoff Ends Without Further Violence
The suspect identified by the victim initially refused to come out of the apartment, setting up a tense standoff with law enforcement outside. Negotiations eventually paid off, and the suspect agreed to exit and speak with officers, the station reported.
That suspect was identified as 40-year-old Kristal P. Daniels of Spartanburg. She was arrested and charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and is currently being held at the Spartanburg County Detention Center, per the same account.
The shifting details of the case — from a reported drive-by shooting that left no trace, to a false location, to an apartment standoff — illustrate how quickly an initial account can change once investigators start checking the facts on the ground.
