Suspected killer captured after standoff

Reuters

Michael Boysen is pictured in this booking photo courtesy of Washington State Department of Corrections.

Lincoln City, Oregon -

Police stormed a motel room in a seaside Oregon town on Tuesday evening and captured a Washington state man suspected of killing his grandparents, ending a multi-state search and a tense daylong standoff at the motel.

Officers found Michael Boysen lying on the floor on his back with apparently serious self-inflicted cuts, Lincoln City police Chief Keith Kilian said.

The 26-year-old man was flown to Legacy Emanuel Medical Centre in Portland.

Hospital spokeswoman Judy Pahl described his condition as critical shortly after he arrived late on Tuesday night.

No officers were hurt in the standoff, which Kilian termed “very successful.” Law enforcement officials in Washington state had described Boysen as extremely dangerous.

The bodies of Boysen's grandparents were found on Saturday in their suburban Seattle home, a day after Boysen was released from prison and was greeted with a welcome home party. After those deaths were discovered, officials say they learned that Boysen had made threats against his relatives and law enforcement officials while behind bars.

Police spent much of Tuesday trying to persuade Boysen to surrender. After breaching the motel room door, they stormed in and captured him.

“We're certainly glad it's over and nobody else got hurt. We're glad they were able to take him into custody alive,” King County Sheriff John Urquhart said in Seattle shortly after the capture.

During Tuesday's siege in the Oregon tourist town of Lincoln City, police pointed rifles at the motel, fired blasts from a water cannon to break the windows of Boysen's second-floor room and used a bullhorn to try to get him to give up. The Oregonian newspaper reported they also used tear gas.

Police used a robot equipped with a video camera and a microphone to communicate with him. The robot was sent onto a balcony outside the motel room. Police breached the door and were able to communicate with Boysen through the robot.

When Boysen didn't come out on his own, police went in after him.

“We tried to negotiate,” Kilian said. “We saw an opening that didn't compromise the safety of our officers.”

Boysen checked into the motel Monday night under his own name, but the name wasn't recognised until Tuesday morning when a desk clerk saw a television story about the case and called the Lincoln City police, Kilian said.

Boysen made threats against members of his family and law enforcement while behind bars, Corrections Department spokesman Chad Lewis said Tuesday. But authorities didn't learn of the threats until after the bodies of the grandparents were found and authorities had started looking for Boysen.

“Sources went to our staff at the Monroe Correctional Centre and told us he had been threatening to do all this,” Lewis said.

The information was passed on to King County deputies, and that's why King County Sheriff John Urquhart called Boysen extremely dangerous at a Monday news conference.

Boysen just finished serving nine months in prison on a burglary conviction, Lewis said. He had no violent infractions in prison -”nothing extraordinary,” Lewis said.

He served a previous sentence between 2006 and February 2011 for four robbery convictions. Those convictions were related to an addiction to narcotic painkillers, Lewis said.

Boysen's grandparents picked him up from prison in Monroe on Friday, drove him to meet his probation officer and to get an identification card. They held a welcome home party for him Friday night.

The bodies were discovered by Boysen's mother Saturday evening. She had been called by a family member who became concerned that the couple hadn't answered their door.

The motive for the killings remains unknown, King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said.

“Between the family and detectives we have no idea,” she said. “It's just bizarre. The family loved and supported him the whole time he was in prison.”

On Tuesday, the King County medical examiner's office identified the couple as Robert R Taylor, 82, and Norma J Taylor, 80. The couple died on Saturday. The cause and manner of their deaths remains under investigation, the medical examiner said.

Sapa-AP