A teenager suspected in a brutal rampage at a Massachusetts gay bar died from wounds suffered in a shootout with Arkansas police after he fatally shot a police officer who had stopped his car and a woman he had picked up in West Virginia, authorities said.
The slain officer, Jim Sell, 63, did not know the 18-year-old he had stopped on Saturday for a traffic violation in the small northern Arkansas town of Gassville was Jacob Robida who was wanted in a hatchet-and-gun attack on Thursday that left three men injured at a New Bedford bar more than 1,930km away, investigators said.
Robida -- who died on Sunday -- shot the officer and then led police on a 32km chase before his car crashed.
Investigators said the teen then shot his passenger, Jennifer Rena Bailey, 33, in the head and started firing at police.
Arkansas State Police Lieutenant Bill Beach said officers did not know who was in the car until after the gunfight.
Robida, who was shot twice in the head, died at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, hospital spokesman Randy Berger said.
New Bedford police said they were still trying to determine what motivated Robida, a high-school dropout who friends said had a swastika tattoo, but had not previously expressed prejudice toward homosexuals.
After the attack at the Puzzles Lounge, police say Robida picked up Bailey at her home in Charleston, West Virginia, but it was unknown whether the mother of three went willingly.
"She and this guy, Robida, were acquaintances," West Virginia State Police Sergeant. C.J. Ellyson said. "The extent of their relationship I don't know. They were corresponding over the Internet and in letters."
Bailey was either divorced or separated from her husband.
Massachusetts investigators had been in contact with West Virginia authorities before Saturday's killings in Arkansas, said New Bedford police Captain Richard Spirlet. He would not give details, saying, "That's part of the investigation."
At Puzzles in New Bedford, there was a mix of relief, sadness and disappointment.
"I wish he would have lived and gone on trial," said Dan Sheterom, 51, a regular who lives in an apartment above the bar.
"I would have liked to have seen if the commonwealth here would have taken it up to the federal government as a hate crime," he said.
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