July 7 (Bloomberg) -- A suspected serial killer blamed for the deaths of five people in South Carolina was shot dead in a gunfight with police investigating an attempted burglary, authorities said.

Patrick Burris, a 41-year-old career criminal, was killed in Gastonia, North Carolina, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of where the murders took place, said Bill Blanton, sheriff in Cherokee County, in a televised news conference late yesterday.

Burris was killed when three officers in Gastonia went to investigate a possible burglary. They spoke to Burris, who pulled a gun and shot and wounded one of the officers when they tried to arrest him for a parole violation, authorities said.

“Through forensics, we were able to prove today that the weapon he shot the officer with was the same weapon all five of our victims were shot with,” said Blanton.

Police also can place Burris near the three sites of the killings and have recovered items from the murder scenes in his possession, Blanton said, without providing details.

Burris had a long list of violations, including armed robbery, burglary and forgery, and should have been in jail, said Reggie Lloyd, director of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

“At some point, the criminal justice system is going to have to explain why this individual was out on the street,” Lloyd said at the press conference.

The killings over a 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) area of South Carolina caused fear among residents and sparked a massive police manhunt.

The killings began on June 27 when a peach farmer was shot dead, the Associated Press reported. An 83-year-old woman and her daughter were found tied up and shot four days later, and the day after that, a man and his teenage daughter were shot in their family’s furniture store, AP said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net; Brian Lysaght in London at blysaght@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 7, 2009 07:36 EDT