POLICE: KIDNAP SUSPECT KILLS 2, SELF
The suspect in a violent kidnapping in Oregon killed two men before being cornered by officers and fatally shooting himself, police said Wednesday.
Benjamin Obadiah Foster, 36, died at a hospital Tuesday night, hours after he shot himself while hiding in a crawlspace underneath a house in Grants Pass. In a news conference Wednesday, law enforcement officers revealed details on the intensive manhunt for Foster, including finding the bodies of the two men in a rural area north of Grants Pass.
Richard Lee Barron Jr. and Donald Owen Griffith were killed sometime between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, Oregon State Police Capt. Kyle Kennedy said.
The men lived together in Sunny Valley and apparently did not know Foster, who police said left a gruesome scene and stole some of the victims’ belongings, including their dog.
He had been the subject of a manhunt after a woman was found unconscious, bound and near death in a house in Grants Pass on Jan. 24. Authorities say Foster tortured the woman, who remained hospitalized in critical condition on Wednesday.
Authorities converged on the neighborhood with rifles and at least one armored vehicle and searched the house where they had found the woman the previous week. Officers didn’t initially find anyone, but then they sent a sheriff’s department robot into the crawlspace and found signs Foster was hiding there.
The officers expected a gunfight, but instead Foster shot himself in the head, according to Grants Pass Police Chief Warren Hensman.