Authorities say man killed in shootout on verge of new life

<p>Authorities say a man who was killed in a shootout with a Cherokee County sheriff's deputy this week was minutes away from disappearing into a new life he had created with false identities.</p><p>Frank Sheridan's house in Woodstock was empty, the red panel truck in the driveway was loaded down with the last of his possessions and he was about to leave when Deputy Patrick Neal arrived Tuesday to serve a probation warrant, sheriff's Capt. Ron Hunton said Friday.</p><p>Sheridan, 48, had rented an apartment and storage units and opened a checking account in sparsely populated Jackson County, N.C., about 130 miles from Atlanta.</p><p>He had joined a gun club in Asheville, N.C., under a false name, Hunton said.</p><p>Neal, 33, was shot in the left cheek and the right leg, and four more bullets struck his bulletproof vest. He returned fire and killed Sheridan in his driveway. Neal was released from the hospital and returned home Thursday.</p><p>Sheriff Roger Garrison said Friday that Gail Cooper, 56, of Acworth, a friend of Sheridan's, had been charged with five counts of conspiring to help a felon possess firearms. She was being held in the Cherokee County Jail in lieu of $27,750 bail.</p><p>Earlier this year, Sheridan was ordered to give up his firearms after a felony conviction of aggravated stalking of his ex-wife. The weapons were given to Cooper to sell to raise cash for legal fees to pay Sheridan's attorney.</p><p>Authorities accused Cooper of giving the weapons back to Sheridan.</p><p>One of the guns, a .45-caliber pistol, was used in the shooting of Neal. Two handguns, a double-barreled shotgun and a military-style rifle were found in the North Carolina duplex that Sheridan rented under a false name, Hunton said.</p><p>Hunton said Sheridan apparently assumed identities of men listed as missing, gathering information such as birth dates and parents' names from the Internet.</p><p>"The ones whose identities he assumed even resembled him," Hunton said.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x28664ac)</p>