By Laura Myers
SEATTLE ? A body found in the snow at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state is that of an Iraq war veteran suspected of killing a park ranger, then fleeing into the wilderness, authorities said on Monday.
Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Lee Snook said the body was confirmed to be that of 24-year-old Benjamin Colton Barnes, who was suspected of shooting park ranger Margaret Anderson to death on Sunday when she stopped his vehicle at a roadblock.
Snook said Barnes? body had been found lying face down in the snow.
?The conjecture is he died from exposure to the elements,? Snook said, adding that temperatures dipped into the 20s Fahrenheit overnight in the park.
She could not say if weapons were found at the scene.
Earlier on Monday, park spokeswoman Lee Taylor told Reuters that search teams were en route to the body in rugged terrain in the park?s Narada Falls area, about two miles (three kilometres) from Paradise and the Jackson Visitor Center.
Aircraft had spotted the man?s body from the air, Taylor said
The shooting death of Anderson, 34, on New Year?s Day touched off a massive manhunt for the heavily armed veteran and prompted the evacuation of more than 100 tourists.
SWAT teams, heavily armed officers and airplanes, using infrared technology to scan the ground for the gunman?s body heat, searched the snowy landscape for him during the night.
The body discovered on Monday morning had ?no heat signature,? Washington State Patrol spokesman Guy Gill said in a tweet.
Barnes, an Iraq war veteran with survivalist training, was also suspected in a separate early New Year?s Day shooting incident that injured three men and a woman at a house party in the Skyway neighborhood of Renton, Washington, near Seattle, according to the King County Sheriff?s Department.
Photographs released by authorities showed a heavily tattooed Barnes with the words ?Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust? on the back of his neck.
The park, which is about 80 miles (130 km) southeast of Seattle, remained closed to visitors on Monday.
About 1.7 million visitors traveled in 2010 to Mount Rainier National Park.
More than 35 square miles (91 square km) of permanent ice and snow cover Mount Rainier, 14,410 feet (4,400 metres) above sea level. The temperature on Monday morning hovered near freezing.
Barnes had served in Iraq but suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Seattle Times, which linked him to another shooting earlier Sunday in which four people were injured.
A photo of Barnes published by local media shows him with tattooed bare torso brandishing two large guns. The Seattle Times said he tried to commit suicide in January.
The gunman allegedly killed 34-year-old park ranger Margaret Anderson after she set up a roadblock to corral the suspect who had sped away from an earlier traffic stop.
Barnes is reported to be a former soldier with previous run-ins with the law. He allegedly shot Anderson with a high-powered assault rifle before fleeing into the wilderness on foot at around 11:00 am local time.
According to local media outlet KOMO News, Barnes is also believed to be connected to a shooting earlier Sunday that injured four in Skyway, a community approximately 10 miles southeast of Seattle.
Witnesses told the police that the suspect was asked to leave a party earlier in the night before returning and opening fire.
A popular destination for hikers and outdoors enthusiasts, Rainier National Park boasts miles of hiking trails offering spectacular vistas of the 14,411-foot peak.
The incident has eerie similarities to the 1992 movie ?Rambo: First Blood,? in which Sylvester Stallone plays a troubled Vietnam Vet who evades capture outside the fictional town of Hope, Washington.
- With files from Agence France-Presse
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