22-hour standoff ends — man found dead at bunker
NORTH BEND, Wash. — After a 22-hour standoff, police blew the top off a rugged mountain bunker near Seattle on Saturday and found their target — a man believed to be a murder suspect — dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities were working to positively identify the body as 41-year-old Peter Keller, who hasn’t been seen since his wife and daughter were found shot to death last weekend, King County sheriff’s Sgt. Katie Larson said.
Officers shouted warnings before blowing the roof, Larson said. The raid ended a tense week for law officers who tried to track down Keller, a gun enthusiast described by his family as having a “survivalist mentality.”
“There’s been a huge sigh of relief,” Larson said. “Our people are out safe, and the trails are now safe for the community to use.”
Keller spent eight years building the bunker into the side of Rattlesnake Ridge, police said. It was thoroughly camouflaged, heavily reinforced and had multiple levels. Photos of the inside of the bunker, released by the King County Sheriff’s Office, showed a shelf full of ammunition boxes.
SWAT teams spent a grueling seven hours on the mountainside Friday morning, crawling over dangerously steep terrain slick with mud from recent rains, before they found the bunker. SWAT officers who kept watch on it through Friday night said they saw lights going on and off, and they believed its occupant had everything necessary to remain inside for a long time — including a generator, food, gas mask, bullet-resistant vest and many guns.
Photographs found in Keller’s home after the killings gave authorities an idea of where it was; in one picture that they enhanced, detectives could make out buildings in nearby North Bend. Combined with reports from hikers who remembered seeing his faded red pickup at the Rattlesnake Ridge trailhead, the sheriff’s office sent experienced trackers to the area, where they found off-trail boot prints confirming their belief that he was somewhere on the ridge.
An arrest warrant issued Wednesday accuses Keller of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson; the home was set on fire after Keller’s wife and daughter were shot. The King County medical examiner determined Kaylene Keller, 18, and her mother, Lynnettee Keller, 41, both died from gunshots to the head.