MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. (AP) — A teenager suspected in a brutal rampage at a Massachusetts gay bar died Sunday from wounds suffered a day earlier 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 for a traffic violation in the small northern Arkansas town of Gassville was Jacob D. Robida who was wanted in the hatchet-and-gun attack Thursday that left three men injured at a New Bedford bar more than 1,200 miles away, investigators said.
Robida shot the officer and then led police on a 20-mile chase through the Arkansas hills before his car crashed in Norfork.
Investigators said the teen then shot his passenger, Jennifer Rena Bailey, 33, in the head and started firing at police.
Arkansas State Police Lt. Bill Beach said officers didn't know who was in the car until after the gunfight.
Robida, who was shot twice in the head, died at Cox-South Hospital in Springfield, Mo., 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, W.Va., but it was unknown whether the mother of three went willingly.