Suicide Ended U.S. 101 Standoff

A newspaper carrier committed suicide after exchanging gunfire with a Grays Harbor County sheriff’s deputy and holing up in his house on U.S. 101, an autopsy revealed Saturday.

Duane D. Perry, 53, who delivered The Daily World of Aberdeen in the Lake Quinault area on the coastal side of the Olympic Peninsula, died Friday night of a self-inflicted wound from a .22-caliber Magnum revolver, Coroner John Bebich said.

There were no other wounds or evidence of trauma on the body, Bebich added.

Sheriff Dennis Morrisette said the body was found when members of the county’s special emergency response team entered Perry’s house about 9 p.m., ending a 5-hour standoff in which U.S. 101 was closed to traffic.

Morrisette said the episode began when deputy Jeff Myers tried to stop a car for speeding on the highway near the south end of Lake Quinault.

The driver, apparently on his delivery route, headed south a few miles with Myers in pursuit, then stopped at his house and ducked through a sliding glass door as the deputy fired a canister of pepper gas.

The man then fired a weapon through the door and the deputy returned fire. There were three or four exchanges of gunfire, but neither was hit. No one else was in the house, Morrisette said.

A trained negotiator at the scene was unable to contact Perry because his telephone apparently was not working, officials said.

During the standoff a member of the response team, Hoquiam police detective Harry Blodgett, accidentally shot himself in the right leg and was treated at Grays Harbor Community Hospital for a flesh wound, said Lynn O’Conner, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.