Erick Shute, frontman of the New York City death metal band Pyrexia, has been arrested for a triple homicide, WSAZ reports (via Noisey). On the evening of June 13, Shute allegedly shot three West Virginia men–Jack Douglas, Travis Bartley (24), and Willie Bartley (53)–near Great Cacapon, West Virginia, in what Morgan County Sheriff Vincent Shambaugh told the Journal News “was a property dispute over some firewood, or something of that nature.” A fourth person, who has not been identified, escaped unharmed. Shute then fled the scene before he was apprehended late last night in Chester County, Pennsylvania, according to the Pennsylvania Police Department. In a since-deleted Facebook post provided to New Jersey Advance Media, Shute writes that his act “was self defense” and that his victims “stole over $20,000” of his property.

Erick Shute has sang on two of Pyrexia’s albums, 2007’s Age of the Wicked and 2013’s Feast of Iniquity. The 32-year-old Pennsville, New Jersey native has resided for a number of years in Great Cacapon. Sheriff Shambaugh identified Shute as a “sovereign citizen” to the MetroNews. He explained, “These folks, they don’t want to pay taxes. They don’t want to recognize local government. They want to build these compounds back in these places away from everybody.” Shambaugh believes that compound was the source of the dispute. He also said Shute had filed property disputes, among other complaints, against the victims, but clarifies that the department has “not been able to substantiate anything as far as putting any charges on the deceased because of these allegations.”

In 2009, Shute encountered controversy in Salem County, New Jersey for hanging an American flag upside down as a “signal of distress” for the country. At the time, he said, “We went to other countries to fight corrupt governments now we face our own from home.” Then in 2011, a New Jersey grand jury indicted him on charges of attacking a police officer and resisting arrest.