Local resident killed in Virginia
A 24-year-old Mt. Pleasant man serving in the U.S. Navy was killed in a shooting Jan. 15 at a nightclub in Virginia Beach, Va. Sonar technician Mark T. VanHorn, who was working as a bouncer at Ocean’s Cabaret, a gentleman’s club on Oceana Boulevard, was killed, along with patron Michael T. Porter, 26, from the state of California.
Virginia Beach police charged Charles Lorenzo Butler, 23, of Virginia Beach and Steven Alexander Breaux, 21, of Norfolk, Va., with two counts each of murder, single counts of capital murder and three counts each of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Virginia Beach police said emergency personnel responded to multiple reports of shots fired at the nightclub just after 1 a.m. and discovered both VanHorn and Porter shot and killed in the parking lot outside the club.
Police immediately used a dog to search for suspects in the shooting and the K-9 discovered two suspects hiding several hundred yards from the business in a ditch underneath some brush, police said.
Police department spokes-man Jimmy Barnes confirmed that both men were taken into custody and that the weapons used in the shooting also were recovered at the scene.
According to police, Butler and Breaux apparently created a “minor disturbance” inside the club and were asked to leave.
Police said the men were escorted out the front door, where the two men allegedly opened fire, striking VanHorn and Porter.
Additionally, from eyewitness accounts, police said the men shot at a third man, patron Hector Diaz, a deputy sheriff in Portsmouth, Va., who was not injured.
Police said the case remains under investigation by the Virginia Beach Homicide Unit.
VanHorn graduated from Mt. Pleasant High School in 2000 and was serving on the USS Winston S. Churchill.
The Brooks Funeral Home in Mount Pleasant is handling funeral arrangements for VanHorn.