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Two deputy
sheriffs confronted Benjamin Peter Ashley, 34, on a dirt road in
the early evening on Saturday after the owner of convenience
store reported that a man fitting Ashley’s description had
bought some food, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said on
Sunday.
Two deputies found Ashley walking about a half mile from the
store and ordered him to show his hands, Youngblood said. Ashley
pulled out a handgun and the deputies fired, Youngblood said.
Ashley was fatally wounded, and may have been hit by his own
gunfire as well as that from the deputies, Youngblood said.
Three other guns were found on his body.
Ashley is believed to have been hiding in the woods along the
Pacific Crest Trail and was probably headed back to the trail,
Youngblood said. The search for Ashley over a 100-square- mile
area of high desert terrain east of Bakersfield, California
involved state, county and federal officers, some in aircraft,
and the public had been warned to be on guard, Youngblood said.
"There’s a lot of relief," Youngblood said. "We were spending an
enormous amount of money trying to capture this guy before he
killed again."
Ashley was suspected of killing retired dentist David
Markiewitz, 64, found dead on July 30 in a cabin in the woods in
Kern County, Youngblood said. Two days earlier, Ashley briefly
took three men hostage in another cabin before they got away,
police said. They had confronted him and told him to leave.
On Aug. 1, Ashley shot two Kern County SWAT team deputies who
found him hiding in the woods, Youngblood said. One of the
deputies suffered serious injuries.
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Missouri; editing by
Larry King)
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