SA: Man kills himself after leaving trail of destruction in SA
By Michelle Draper and Steve LarkinThu Jul 9 22:07:14 EST 2009
ADELAIDE, July 9 AAP - He rolled a car, stabbed a policeman, stole the officer's patrol car and ran a man over on the way to a remote property where he sexually assaulted an elderly woman.
Then he killed himself.
Nine hours after barricading himself in a house with 16 guns on a remote South Australian property, the body of a 32-year-old man who'd left a trail of destruction in the state's north on Thursday was found by police.
Officers entered the house at Bulyinnie Station, south of Yunta, just after 7.30pm (CST), where police said the man lay dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It was the grisly end to a bizarre saga described by SA Police Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton as "absolutely horrendous".
"When you consider a police officer doing his duty was stabbed, his vehicle was stolen, a member of the community ... run over, and a mid 80-year-old woman was ... tied up and sexually assaulted ... it's a very tragic situation," he said.
SA police confirmed the man's death at 8pm.
"Police can confirm that they have entered the premises and a man has been found deceased inside with what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound," a South Australian police spokeswoman told AAP.
The man took the woman, who was at the house south of Yunta, hostage after stabbing a policeman and stealing his patrol car early on Thursday.
The woman, who did not know the man, was bound by the hands and sexually assaulted, Mr Barton said.
The offender also forced the woman to open a gun safe where 16 firearms were kept, he said.
The woman has told police that as she escaped about 11.40am, an hour after the patrol car was found abandoned outside the property, she heard gunshots and believed the man had shot himself.
Earlier, at about 4.20am, Yunta police responded to reports of a car rollover on the Barrier Highway, southwest of the town. The car was found but no one was with the vehicle.
At 6.55am, a man suspected of being the vehicle's driver was spoken to by a lone policeman.
The man stabbed the policeman in the right shoulder and stole his marked patrol car, which contained the keys to the Manna Hill police station where the stabbing victim was the sole police officer.
The stabbed policeman, aged in his 40s, was taken to the Peterborough Hospital and later transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he is in a stable condition.
Another man, a 25-year-old shearer, also presented to the Peterborough Hospital about 8am with bruising, saying he had been struck by the stolen police car.
Drugs were found in the offender's car, Mr Barton said, without elaborating.
The man was known to police, who declined to release his name.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
