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GRANTSVILLE, Utah (AP) -- A Washington parolee who killed himself after allegedly shooting two women at Grantsville-area businesses had been sought in a crime spree in the Pacific Northwest.
Now authorities also are looking at the Walla Walla man, Richard Wilson, 39, as a possible suspect in an Idaho murder and the disappearance of a Brigham Young University student in Oregon.
"He's had every law enforcement agency in the Columbia River Gorge looking for him," said Frank Rivera, a Sherman County, Ore., detective.
"I figured we would have problems with him. He told someone his plans were never to go back to prison," Walla Walla County sheriff's detective Mike Skeeters told the Deseret Morning News.
Wilson was paroled from the Washington prison system in February and had a felony criminal history dating back to 1989. In 1995, he was convicted of committing a rape at knifepoint in Vancouver, Wash.
Since his release from prison, Wilson had been living with his parents in Walla Walla, said Walla Walla police Sgt. Matt Wood.
It was believed Wilson burglarized a residence on May 17, pawned the loot the next day and took off, Wood said.
Over the next two weeks, Wilson was believed to have committed crimes at numerous towns, including a rape at Biggs Junction, Ore.
In Idaho, Elmore County Sheriff Rick Layher said Thursday night that his investigators had left for Utah to see if there's a connection between Wilson and the slaying of 17-year-old Teresa Garcia at a rural home at Mountain Home on Tuesday.
"They're going down there to check it out. Right now, it's hard to say if there is or isn't." Layher said.
In addition, police at Corvallis, Ore., told a local TV station in Salt Lake City that Wilson could be a person of interest in the disappearance of Brigham Young University student Brooke Wilberger. She disappeared May 24 from an apartment complex owned by her family near the Oregon State University campus.
The high-speed chase that led to Wilson's suicide followed two shootings Wednesday night in western Utah.
The first shooting occurred at a Grantsville laundry. Kimberli Lingard, 17, a high school senior who worked at the laundry, was found by patrons about 7:30 p.m. She had been shot in the head and chest. Wilson got less than $50 from the till, Police Chief Danny Johnson said.
The girl was flown to University Hospital in Salt Lake City, where she was listed in critical condition following brain surgery.
"She is doing better than we initially expected and we hope for the best possible recovery for her," he family said in a statement.
The second shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. at a gas station/restaurant in Delle, 70 miles east of the Nevada line, Tooele County spokesman Wade Mathews said. A clerk, 59-year-old Dee Jensen, was shot in the neck, but she still was able to call 911 and give a description of her assailant and his car. She was flown to LDS hospital in Salt Lake City, where she was in fair condition.
After receiving Jensen's call, police set up roadblocks.
The highway patrol spotted the car on Interstate 80 and gave chase at speeds up to 100 mph.
Troopers used spikes in the road to flatten the tires on Wilson's car, which he reportedly bought in Washington with a bounced check.
The vehicle slowed and stopped about six miles east of the Nevada line, Mathews said.
Wilson fired a single shot out the window as a warning, and after a brief standoff, he shot himself.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
