Man suspected of killing four women in U.S. south found dead: police

[February 08, 2017]  (Reuters) - A man wanted for killing four women during a week-long crime spree in the Florida panhandle area shot himself dead in a Georgia motel room and his female accomplice was arrested after a stand off with police on Tuesday, police said.

William Boyette, 44, died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound at the motel in West Point, Georgia, Troup County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on Facebook. Fellow suspect Mary Rice, 38, was arrested at the motel.

“We are always glad when something this serious is resolved and no one is injured and no one is killed,” Sheriff James Woodruff told a news conference after the pair were found. “We knew going in, them having killed several people already, that this could end very badly.”

Boyette and Rice were suspects in the fatal shooting of two women, one aged 30 and the other 39, at a motel in Milton, Florida on Jan. 31. Authorities said that the pair then went to Lillian, Alabama where they killed another woman and stole her vehicle on Friday, an NBC affiliate in Atlanta reported.

Boyette and Rice were also wanted for shooting a 28-year-old woman in her Pensacola, Florida home on Monday. Her two-year-old son was in the home, but was unharmed, the Pensacola Police Department said in a statement.

The woman died on Tuesday, local media reported.

Authorities were aided in their manhunt on Monday after Boyette and Rice, who dyed her hair orange, were seen on surveillance video at a restaurant and a gas station in Pensacola, police said.

"Prayers answered," Pensacola police said on Facebook after the two suspects were found.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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