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NATION
A brief look at news from around the country
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u 4-YEAR-OLD SHOT, DIES; FELON FLEES: SEDRO-WOOLEY, Wash. (AP) — A convicted felon is on the run in wooded rural Washington after a 4-year-old boy died Sunday of a gunshot at his home.

The man, 25-year-old Trevor Braymiller, is considered armed and dangerous, Sedro-Woolley police Chief Doug Wood said.

“He’s been in the area for quite some time,” Wood said. “He’s a convicted felon with a prior conviction for selling drugs,” Wood said.

Initial reports Sunday morning said the boy had shot himself with a gun, Wood said, but after a medical examiner looked at the boy, it was determined that was not the case. Wood said investigators are treating the case as a homicide.

Braymiller is believed to be moving on foot, with officers from several law enforcement agencies chasing him. Wood described Braymiller as having “scruffy” facial hair and wearing a red or orange shirt.

Sedro-Woolley is a town of about 10,000 people 70 miles north of Seattle in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

On Sunday afternoon, officers were focusing the search on the Big Lake area, just south of the town, Wood said.

Investigators believe Braymiller was not the boy’s father, but rather a father figure.

The boy’s mother was questioned and is now with her family. Another boy was also at the home at the time of the shooting, Wood said.

The home is well known to officers in the area. In 2011, police conducted a drug raid there.



u MAN FIRES SHOTS INTO FLOOR OF SOUTHERN MO. CHURCH: NORWOOD, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a gunman walked into a southern Missouri church service and fired two shots into the floor.

Wright County Sheriff Glenn Adler said that another round hit the ceiling Sunday morning when churchgoers tackled the man to the floor of First Baptist Church in Norwood.

KOLR-TV reports that one of the men who tackled the gunman suffered a minor shoulder injury during the struggle. No one else was hurt.

Adler told the station that the gunman may have been upset with the church but declined to elaborate.

The gunman’s name wasn’t immediately released. He is in custody and charges are pending.



u LUBBOCK POLICE INVESTIGATING TEENAGE ABDUCTION: LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Lubbock police are investigating a teenage runaway girl’s report that she was abducted, sexually assaulted and held captive in a house for the past six weeks.

Police Capt. Jon Caspell said the girl told officers she was abducted from Amarillo about two months ago, and on Friday crawled out a window of the Lubbock house where she’d been kept and fled to a McDonald’s restaurant, where she called police.

“We believe her to be credible in her claims and we believe her to be the victim of multiple sexual assaults as well as kidnapping,” Caspell said after a SWAT team served a search warrant Saturday at the home.

Three men surrendered without incident and were detained for questioning. Their names haven’t been released since they haven’t been arrested, though at least one of them had an outstanding warrant, Caspell said.

Authorities believed one of the three detained men brought the girl from Amarillo, about 120 miles to the north. Police said the girl either voluntarily accompanied the man or was abducted.



u FISHERMAN GETS 230-LB. TUNA DESPITE CAPSIZED BOAT: LIHUE, Hawaii (AP) — A 54-year-old fisherman is safe after his 14-foot boat capsized as he was landing a 230-pound tuna in the ocean off Hawaii.

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued Anthony Wichman on Friday after receiving a distress call from his wife.

Wichman was fishing about 10 miles southwest of Port Allen on the island of Kauai Friday morning when he hooked the Ahi tuna. Coast Guard Lt. Jessica Mickelson tells Hawaii News Now that Wichman was able to use his cellphone to call his wife for help.

The Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter to rescue Wichman. Friends arrived on another boat and were able to right Wichman’s boat. They towed it — and the fish — back to port.

BOY FOUND IN TRUNK HAD KEYS WITH HIM: DRESSER, Wis. (AP) — A 2-year-old Wisconsin boy who was found dead in the trunk of a car had the key to the vehicle with him, the family’s pastor said Saturday.

Isaiah Theis had that key and several other sets of keys with him when a deputy found his body Wednesday night, the Rev. Rick Van Gundy told The Associated Press. Van Gundy said he got the information from the Theis family but declined to be more specific, because of the sensitivity of the situation.

“This is breaking the heart of somebody who has a broken heart,” said Van Gundy, pastor of St. Peter’s Community Church in Dresser. “It’s that much of a devastation to them that you can’t even put a word to it.”

The deputy found the boy in the trunk of a customer’s car on his parents’ property near Centuria, where the boy’s father runs an auto repair business. Preliminary autopsy results released Friday said Isaiah likely died of hyperthermia — a condition in which the body temperature spikes — due to Wednesday’s blistering heat.



u MAN FALLS TO HIS DEATH ON COLORADO’S CAPITOL PEAK: ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Rescue crews have recovered the body of a man who fell 200 to 300 feet while descending Capitol Peak west of Aspen, Colo.

The Pitkin County sheriff’s office says Ryan Joseph Palmer, of Vail, decided to climb down the north face of the peak Friday instead of crossing the exposed “knife edge” route again. The 35-year-old’s climbing partners crossed the knife edge and watched him make his way down the face. They called authorities when Palmer did not return to camp.

The sheriff’s office says search and rescue crews found Palmer’s body at the base of the north face just after 2 p.m. Saturday. The body was recovered Sunday.

Capitol Peak rises to an elevation of 14,130 feet.