Illinois deputy fatally shot; suspected gunman in custody
WAYNE COUNTY, Ill. - A Wayne County, Illinois sheriff's deputy was shot and killed Wednesday morning.
Police say the shooting happened near the Illinois-Indiana border.
The suspected gunman — identified as 40-year-old Ray Tate of Hopkinsville, Kentucky — was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon in Clinton County, Illinois.
He's also suspected of a violent carjacking and shooting in Missouri.
An Illinois State Police SWAT team arrested Tate on Wednesday afternoon at a home in Carlyle where Tate allegedly committed a home invasion and took the homeowner hostage in addition to the carjacking victim, police said.
Ray Tate
Tate was charged with murder by the Wayne County State’s Attorney and lodged in the Clinton County Jail.
Neither the carjacking victim nor the home invasion victim was injured, police said.
No other suspect was being sought, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The Wayne County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that Deputy Sean Riley responded to a motorist assist call on Interstate 64 near Mill Shoals around 5 a.m. Wednesday. A second officer who arrived at the scene found Riley dead. The deputy’s squad car was later found abandoned on I-64.
The search for the suspect extended to St. Peters, Missouri, where police believe a man involved in a shooting and carjacking shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday at a QuikTrip convenience store was the same person who killed the deputy.
St. Peters police spokeswoman Melissa Doss said in an email that "there was evidence at the QuikTrip scene which indicates the suspect was also involved in the series of crimes which occurred in Illinois earlier this morning." She declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.
St. Peters police said the man drove away from the convenience store in a car that was later found near Interstate 70 in nearby O’Fallon, Missouri. The suspect then stole a white pickup truck, police said.
Carlyle is 47 miles east of St. Louis.
Associated Press contributed to this report.