By Tami Abdollah
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A man suspected of killing a retired dentist, taking three men hostage and wounding two deputies was killed by gunshots fired by deputies after he refused drop a handgun.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood says an autopsy performed Monday on 34-year-old Benjamin Peter Ashley has determined his cause of death to be a homicide because two of the wounds inflicted by officers who confronted Ashley on Saturday were fatal.
However, Youngblood says the autopsy determined there was a third self-inflicted wound that was also fatal.
The full report has not been completed, and more details are pending.
Ashley was found with more than 100 rounds of ammunition, three guns from the cabin of the retired dentist and another gun from a site where he had exchanged fire with the wounded deputies.
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