Body of Iraq vet who killed ranger found in snow

THE body of an Iraq war veteran suspected of killing a US national park ranger may have been found, authorities said.

He apparently died after trudging into chest-deep snow while trying to elude snow-shoe wearing SWAT team members and police who were on his trail. However, authorities said it would take hours to reach the body to confirm the identification.

Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, reportedly fled to the remote park following an earlier shooting that wounded four near Seattle. Washington State Patrol spokesman Guy Gill said a body believed to be Barnes’s was found face down in snow.

Earlier, authorities evacuated about 125 people from the visitors’ centre at Mount Rainier National Park.

About 150 officers had converged on the park after ranger Margaret Anderson was shot dead on Sunday, and searchers used an aircraft with heat-sensing capabilities to hunt from the skies.

Safety concerns prompted authorities to keep the tourists quarantined at a visitors’ centre as the manhunt unfolded. Early yesterday, officers escorted them out of the park in groups of vehicles over several hours.

Evacuee Dinah Jackson, a mother from Olympia who came to the mountain to sled with family and friends, said officials ordered people to hurry into the lodge after the shooting. Jackson said officials had everyone get on their knees and place hands behind their heads as they went through the building, looking at faces to make sure the gunman was not among them. “That was scary for the kids,” she said.

A parks spokesman said Barnes 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, during which the toddler’s mother sought a temporary restraining order.

In an affidavit, the woman wrote that Barnes was suicidal and possibly suffered from PTSD after deploying to Iraq from 2007 to 2008.