Orange County authorities spent hours on Wednesday searching for two men believed to have been examining an area in the county’s southwest region to do criminal activity.

A release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday night said a suspicious vehicle call led to deputies coming to Ferguson Road outside Chapel Hill that morning. An area resident called 911 after arriving home to an unoccupied burgundy Chrysler 300 parked in the road front of his house and then seeing a man jump into the car before driving down the road blowing his horn.

The release said deputies arrived and found the vehicle, but the motorist drove away and failed to stop for lights and sirens when approached. The Chrysler driver turned onto a dead end road before entering a private driveway, leaving the vehicle and running into nearby woods.

The sheriff’s office said this led to deputies and three K-9 teams, including one from the Carrboro Police Department, tracking the suspect through the wooded area. During that time, 911 communications for Orange County received additional calls reporting sightings of the man running through their yards, with one reporting he was carrying a handgun. Another call at the same time reported a different man running through a nearby cow pasture without a shirt on.

Orange County authorities called off searches after several hours. While neither of the men were apprehended in Orange County, Wednesday’s release said Chatham County Sheriff’s Office got a report of a shirtless man knocking on the door of a property off Jones Ferry Road later in the day. The man was taken to the UNC Hospital Emergency Department for a medical emergency.

Major Kevin Jones of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said deputies believe the driver of the Chrysler on Ferguson Road had been blowing his horn to signal his location to the man later seen running through the cow pasture.

“No one has reported any break-ins in the area as of yet, but based on our training and experience, we consider it possible the men were casing the area or engaging in criminal activity,” Jones wrote in the release. “Today’s events illustrate why it is always a good idea for people to lock their homes and vehicles. We appreciate that residents were alert to unusual activity near their homes and immediately called 911.”

A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said an investigation into the incident was continuing on Thursday.

Photo via the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

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