(CBS/AP)
Last Updated 2:18 p.m. ET
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — Police said a body believed to be that of a gunman suspected in the shooting death of a park ranger has been found, but the identity has not yet been confirmed.
Public Information Officer Guy Gill said that police searching Mount Rainier National Park have located the body of a white male face down in the snow with no heat signature. It is believed to be that of homicide suspect Benjamin C. Barnes, but that has not been confirmed yet.
He apparently died after trudging into chest-deep snow while trying to elude snowshoe-wearing SWAT team members and other police who were on his trail.,/P>
Barnes, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran, was a person of interest in the Sunday morning killing of Margaret Anderson. Police said he was also a suspect in a prior shooting at a house party in Skyway, Wash., that left four people wounded.
Parks spokesman Kevin Bacher said the speculation was that Barnes came to the park to get away.
About 150 officers converged on the mountain park after Anderson was shot to death Sunday morning, and searchers used an aircraft with heat-sensing capabilities to hunt from the skies.
About 125 tourists were evacuated from the park's visitors center as tactical teams searched the snowy terrain for the gunman.
(Credit: AP Photo/Pierce County Sheriff's Department)
A parks spokesman said Barnes (left, in an undated photo) was an Iraq war veteran, and the mother of his child had alleged he suffered from post-traumatic stress following his deployments.
Barnes was involved in a custody dispute in Tacoma in July 2011, during which the toddler's mother sought a temporary restraining order against him, according to court documents. In an affidavit, the woman wrote that Barnes was suicidal and possibly suffered from PTSD after deploying to Iraq in 2007-2008. She said he gets easily irritated, angry and depressed and keeps an arsenal of weapons in his home.
Barnes was also a suspect in the early Sunday morning shooting of four people at a house party south of Seattle, police said.
Sgt. Cindi West, King County Sheriff's spokesperson, said late Sunday that Barnes was connected to an early-morning shooting at a New Year's house party in Skyway, Wash., south of Seattle that left four people injured, two critically. That incident happened about 3 a.m., and stemmed from an argument over a gun.
West said three people fled the scene. Two were located, and West said authorities were trying to find Barnes and had been in contact with his family, trying to have them convince him to "come to the police and tell his side of the story" in the Skyway shooting.
At Mount Rainier around 10:20 a.m. Sunday, Bacher said the gunman had sped past a checkpoint to make sure vehicles have tire chains, which are sometimes necessary in snowy conditions. One ranger began following him while Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two young children who was married to another Mount Rainier park ranger, eventually blocked the road to stop the driver.
Before fleeing, the gunman fired shots at both Anderson and the ranger that trailed him, but only Anderson was hit, Bacher said. Anderson would've been armed, as she was one of the rangers tasked with law enforcement, Bacher said. Troyer said she was shot before she had even exited the vehicle.
