The hero cop from Carthage will carry a souvenir for the rest of his life.

This morning surgeons removed all but one of the shotgun pellets that struck Justin Garner as he put an end to a killing rampage that took eight lives.

Police Chief Chris McKenzie and Garner returned to Carthage from New York in the late afternoon Monday following their morning appearance on NBC's Today Show for an interview with Matt Lauer.

Garner was resting up for today's date with the scalpel. The pellets surgeons take out won't be going on his mantelpiece, but to the state crime lab for tests and eventually back for use at trial.

"The pellets are evidence," McKenzie said Monday evening. "One or two of my guys are planning to be there Tuesday morning to put them in evidence bags. Those two investigators standing by will collect the pellets as they are removed."

The two brother officers from the Carthage Police Department waited with their plastic bags for the doctor to hand over the evidence as it was removed from Garner's leg and foot. They signed and sealed the bags and turned them in to Moore County Sheriff Lane Carter's detectives who are conducting investigations in the case.

The courts won't get all the shotgun pellets Garner carries in his body. Two will come out, but one will remain behind for life.

"It is one in his calf," the chief said. "It is so deep in tissue they don't feel it is safe to try to get it out."

Garner may carry that bullet for the rest of his days, but he'll also be carrying something more important, McKenzie said. He will carry the knowledge that his actions that Sunday morning will be remembered forever by families whose loved ones did not die that day.

"They lived because Justin Garner was there," McKenzie said. "A lot of lives were saved because of him."