Police search for double killer in calamity-plagued town

Police searched Tuesday for a man who fatally shot another man and a woman in a Western New York town that in the past year also lost two teenagers to violence and a mother and her baby to suspected foul play.

The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office said the shooting happened around 2 p.m. Monday outside a home in Sodus, about 25 miles east of Rochester. A witness told police a man walked up to a car and shot and killed the female driver, and then shot and killed a man nearby.

Deputies said the man was spotted running through the backyard of a home near the shooting scene wearing a dark hoodie and a green hat.

Police on Tuesday identified the victims as Amber Washburn, 24, and Joshua Niles, 28. Authorities said they lived at the home where the shooting occurred but didn’t release details of their relationship.

State troopers and sheriff’s deputies from neighboring counties joined local police in searching for the killer Tuesday, with a state police helicopter providing assistance. Local schools were closed as a precaution.

The fatal double shooting was the latest calamity to hit Sodus, a town of about 8,000 on Lake Ontario’s southern shore. In spring 2017, it suffered some of the worst damage from flooding that officials blamed on unusually heavy rains.

Some lakeside residents and business owners blamed the flooding on a U.S.-Canada commission that regulates lake water levels.

Last November, a 17-yearold Sodus girl was stabbed to death by her 19-yearold ex-boyfriend. The next month, a 17-year-old boy from Sodus was stabbed to death by two other teens in a nearby village.

In May, an 18-year-old woman’s body was found on a Sodus farm a week after she and her 1-year-old son were reported missing. Last week, police said they found the boy’s skeletal remains scattered around a shallow grave discovered near where his mother’s body was found.

The investigation into their deaths continues.

Authorities said the woman’s boyfriend has admitted to burying her but said he didn’t kill her. He has been charged with evidence tampering. No one has been charged in the deaths of the mother and son, but police said the boyfriend is the only suspect.