Murder suspect found dead in Wash. bunker

Murder suspect found dead in Wash. bunker

NORTH BEND, Wash.

Peter Keller spent eight years carving his hole in the side of the mountain, camouflaging the rugged underground bunker with ferns and sticks and stocking it with a generator and ammunition boxes sealed in Ziploc bags. Suspected in the deaths of his wife, daughter and pets last weekend, he headed there prepared for the long haul with high-powered rifles, scope and body armor.

Seattle-area tactical officers who slogged for hours over dangerously steep, muddy ground to find him were prepared, too. They pumped in tear gas, called for him over bullhorns, and, after 22 hours, set off explosives along the top of the bunker Saturday.

Keller was inside, already dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. A handgun was next to his body.

The 41-year-old hadn’t been seen since his wife, Lynnettee, and 18-year-old daughter, tKaylene, were found shot dead in their home last weekend.

1 dead after storm blows over beer tent

ST. LOUIS

High winds swept through a beer tent where 200 people gathered after a Cardinals game Saturday, killing one and critically injuring at least five others, authorities said. But the owner of the bar said it was lightning — not wind — that killed the patron.

At least 17 were hospitalized, and up to 100 people were treated at the scene after officials said straight-line winds whipped through a large tent outside Kilroy’s Sports Bar, near Busch Stadium. The crowd was celebrating after the Cardinals had beat Milwaukee 7-3 earlier in the afternoon.

Eddie Roth, director for the St. Louis Department of Public Safety, said winds of about 50 mph shattered aluminum poles that held up the tent, which was south of the stadium. The force of the wind blew the tent onto an adjacent railroad bridge.

Large bomb defused on N. Ireland border

DUBLIN

British army experts defused a 600-pound van bomb Saturday on the Northern Ireland border, the largest such bomb in more than a year linked to Irish Republican Army die-hards.

British army experts defused the homemade bomb two days after a passing motorist told police about the abandoned van on a border road near the predominantly Catholic town of Newry, a hub for IRA activity. Police and soldiers took more than a day to search the surrounding area, fearful of a potential IRA ambush, before moving in.

Newry’s police commander, Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson, said the bomb was “a very significant device. If this had exploded, it would have caused devastation.”

Syria derides UN chief

BEIRUT

Syria derided U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments “outrageous” Saturday after he blamed the regime for widespread cease-fire violations — the latest sign of trouble for an international peace plan many expect to fail. In new fighting Saturday, activists said regime forces battled army defectors near President Bashar Assad’s summer palace in a coastal village and shelled a Damascus suburb in pursuit of gunmen. State media said government troops foiled an attempt by armed men in rubber boats to land on Syria’s coast, the first reported attempt by rebels to infiltrate from the sea.

Small quake hits Calif.

LOS ANGELES

Some Southern Californians were shaken out of bed Saturday morning by a small earthquake that rattled homes across the Inland Empire region and caused buildings to sway in downtown Los Angeles.

The magnitude-3.8 earthquake struck at 8:07 a.m. The U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered about two miles northwest of Devore, in San Bernardino County. The quake was downgraded from an initial magnitude of 4.1.

“It felt like a sonic boom,” said Letty Salgado, a server at Papa Tony’s Diner in San Bernardino. “Everybody was startled. Customers all looked at each other, then went right back to their breakfasts. It was real quick.”

A San Bernardino County Sheriff’s dispatcher in nearby Rancho Cucamonga said the station shook for a few seconds, but there were no calls about damage or injuries.

Associated Press