By Tim Bryant ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
MONTGOMERY CITY - A police officer shot four times by a man accused of murdering a woman and wounding another person early Friday has been released from the hospital.
Officer Brandon LyBarger, 25, was released Sunday from the University of Missouri Medical Center in Columbia, Mo.
LyBarger suffered wounds to his torso, shoulder, lower right arm and lower back, said Montgomery City Police Chief P.L. Ahern. Ahern said Monday that he was unsure when LyBarger would be able to return to work.
LyBarger was shot about 12:05 a.m. Friday after he and another officer stopped a Cadillac for running a stop sign.
Police say the driver -- identified later as Bryan Tullock, 32, of St. Peters -- opened fire without warning. After shooting two other people, including one fatally, Tullock fled. He was found several hours later at the Marshall Diggs Conservation Area in northwest Montgomery County. Officers arrested Tullock after a scuffle.
At the Montgomery County jail, Tullock suffered a seizure and was hospitalized. Authorities have declined to discuss the nature of the seizure. Tullock also was released Sunday from the hospital in Columbia and was returned to jail, where he was held without bail.
Tullock is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Heidi Casagrand, 32, at a mobile home less than a block from where he is accused of shooting LyBarger. After shooting the officer, Tullock drove to the mobile home and fatally shot Casagrand with a 9 mm pistol, police said. Authorities pronounced her dead at the scene. Tullock then drove a block and shot Ricky L. Fry, 33, outside his mobile home. Authorities said his wounds were not life-threatening. His condition could not be determined Monday.
Neighbors say that Tullock’s estranged wife and their two young children recently moved into Fry’s residence and that she and Casagrand were close friends. At least one neighbor said she thought Tullock was stalking his wife for days before the shootings.
Montgomery County Sheriff Robert Davis stopped short Monday of saying Tullock was held on a suicide watch but said the suspect was under constant camera surveillance “to be on the safe side.”
Tullock was in a lake near his car when an officer found him at the conservation area, police said.
Tullock faces assault charges in the wounding of LyBarger and Fry and on allegations that he shot at the other officer and Dave McManus, who lives at the mobile home where Casagrand died.
Court records show Tullock had served “shock time” in jail and had been put on probation for various criminal charges, mostly misdemeanors.
tbryant@post-dispatch.com e636-255-7212