Houston Chronicle
LIBERTY COUNTY, Texas — Authorities found the man suspected in the wounding of two Liberty County deputies dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound today outside a house near Dayton.
One deputy was treated and released at a Houston hospital, and the other was listed in stable condition.
Liberty County Justice of the Peace Glenn Pruitt idenitifed the body as that of Rickey Juneau. He said it appears Juneau killed himself with a blast from a 12-gauge shotgun.
“I think it was self-linflcited,’ said Prutt. “He still had his finger through the trigger.”
Pruitt said he did not know what provoked the shootings.
The officers, R.E. Evans, 40, and Jeremy Marcantel, received bullet wounds to the head and upper body after 5 a.m. Evans has been with the department for six months, while Marcantel is a three-year veteran.
The deputies were rushed to Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center. Evans was released soon afterward, and Mercantel was in stable condition, officials said. Both men were alert when they left the scene by ambulance.
Law enforcement spokesman Hugh Bishop said a call came in about 5 a.m. reporting gunfire at the house. The first deputy arrived at 5:10 a.m. but waited for backup; the second officer arrived at 5:18.
As the two approached the home, they were fired on and returned fire, Bishop said.
Bishop said the two deputies arrived separately at the house in the Woodland Hills subdivision, near the intersection of County Road 473 and County Road 6474, in response to a call that shots had been fired.
Details remain sketchy, but the officers were fired upon after starting to talk with someone at the home. Bishop said they returned fire.
A neighbor, Jesse Richardson, said he witnessed the incident from his porch beginning about 4:30 a.m. A man who lives there with his parents and a brother was out in the yard shooting at the ground.
“He wasn’t shooting at anything,” he said. He said that when officers arrived about 5 a.m. he heard another gunshot and the officers returned fire as they retreated. He said no other gunshots were heard after that and that the suspect’s body was found at the back of the house.
Neighbor Joe Loftin said he started hearing a total of about 10 or 15 shots around 4:30 a.m. When police arrived, Loftin said, a barrage of at least 25 shots was heard, then quiet.
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