Oconee County Sheriff’s deputies have made an arrest in Wednesday’s shooting death of a 70-year-old Mountain Rest man.

Yates Walter Wyant was taken into custody late Wednesday and has been charged with Walt Wilbanks’ murder, as well as possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, Capt. Steve Jenkins with the OCSO said.

At roughly 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, dispatchers informed multiple agencies of a reported motor vehicle accident on Whetstone Road in Mountain Rest, but the red pickup truck on the side of the road turned out to be the scene of something far worse than a simple accident.

Coroner Karl Addis confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that Wilbanks had been shot to death while in the driver’s side of his red truck, which he used for his landscaping business. Wilbanks lived at 216 Lex Road in Mountain Rest, less than a quarter of a mile from the scene.

Investigators initially could not rule out the possibility of a hunting accident, as the Whetstone Road area is popular among bear hunters, but the type of gun used and apparent proximity of the shooter to the victim made such an incident unlikely.

“When we got to the scene and started investigating it, we ruled out suicide because there was an entry point near the door handle of the truck,” Jenkins said. “The more we investigated it, the less it looked like a hunting accident. It looks like a pretty close-range shot. The person had to be close to him.”

After speaking with family, friends and neighbors in the close-knit Mountain Rest community, a common denominator surfaced: a long running feud between Wyant and Wilbanks, who were neighbors.

According to multiple witness statements, Wyant and Wilbanks had antagonized each other for the better part of 10 years, Jenkins confirmed, and witnesses also place Wyant with a shotgun in his hands near the truck at the time of the shooting. After speaking with numerous people in the neighborhood, investigators obtained a search warrant for Wyant’s 498 Whetstone Road home, roughly 200 yards from where Wilbanks was killed.

“A search warrant was performed Wednesday evening, and we did recover a shotgun from the home,” Jenkins said. “Of course, we’ll have to have forensic testing done on it, but we feel comfortable that the weapon we recovered is going to be the weapon used in the shooting.”

There had been prior physical altercations between the two neighbors before, Jenkins said.

“What brought it to a boiling point, only those two guys knew,” he said. “Over the last 10 years, these guys have had an on and off feud going on. They’d make up and be friends one minute, and then they’d be angry at each other again.”

Whether or not the vehicle was in motion at the time of the shooting is still under investigation, though witnesses have told investigators that Wyant approached the truck with Wilbanks in it.

By talking to friends and family and neighbors, a lot of people in the community were familiar with it. It’s also been confirmed that Wyant is wanted in two other states. He has warrants for his arrest in Colorado for a 1995 assault and battery, as well as a warrant from Florida on the same charge dating back to a 1988 incident.

Wyant will have to wait for a circuit court judge to set his bond.

andrew@dailyjm.com | (864) 973-6684