Registe search a false alarm

Columbus police said the notification that murder suspect Micheal Jason Registe was in the area was a false alarm.

Registe, 24, has been the object of an international search since shortly after the shooting deaths of Randy Newton Jr., 21, and Bryan Kilgore, 20, in Columbus.

Columbus police were called to the scene of a shooting about 9:20 p.m. June 20 at Cross Creek Apartments, 3911 Steam Mill Road, where they discovered the two young men had been shot in the parking lot. Newton died of a gunshot wound to the head. Kilgore died the following morning at The Medical Center, also from a gunshot wound to the head.

Kilgore had been a star pitcher for Hardaway High School's baseball team and was a pitcher with the Columbus State University team. Newton also was a Hardaway athlete who had planned to enroll at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., last fall.

Registe, a former Spencer High School track star, was believed to have taken refuge on the island of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, after he fled the country.