Mount Rainier remains closed

SEATTLE – Staff at Mount Rainier National Park gathered Tuesday to grieve the loss of a ranger fatally shot on New Year’s Day – and to wonder what led the gunman, heavily armed and carrying a bulletproof vest, to that rugged, remote spot as he fled another shooting 100 miles away.

Ranger Margaret Anderson, a 34-year-old mother of two who was married to another park ranger, was shot and killed Sunday by Benjamin Colton Barnes, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran. After searching by plane and snowshoe, investigators found Barnes dead, apparently from the cold, in a snowy creek Monday. A handgun and a rifle were near his body.

An autopsy Tuesday showed Benjamin Barnes died of drowning.

Pierce County’s chief medical examiner Dr. Thomas Clark also found hypothermia was a significant condition in Barnes’ death.

The national park, which receives 1.5 million visitors a year, remained closed Tuesday and was not expected to reopen until at least Friday. Employees attended an all-staff meeting to begin dealing with Anderson’s death. Her husband was on duty elsewhere in the park when she was killed.

“We’ve just been devastated by this horrific event, and we’re just not ready to reopen quite yet,” park spokesman Kevin Bacher said. “What happened here at Mount Rainier was unprecedented in the history of the park – unprecedented in the history of most national parks, which are intended to be a place of refuge. We hope we can get it back open soon so that people can return to that place of refuge.”

The FBI continued processing vehicles at the crime scene Tuesday, about a mile down the road from the Paradise visitor center. Meanwhile, the King County sheriff’s office was trying to pin down details about a shooting Barnes was said to be involved in at a party in Skyway, south of Seattle.

Witnesses told investigators that about nine people attended the party, many of them armed, and some had a “show and tell” with their guns. Some fired shots in the air to celebrate the new year. At 3 a.m. Sunday, one partygoer asked to see another’s gun and then refused to give it back.

At least two people drew their weapons – Barnes was one of them – and four people were injured in the shootout, two of them critically, the sheriff’s office said Tuesday. It wasn’t clear who fired first.

Barnes fled, along with two other people, investigators said.

According to police and court documents, Barnes had a troubled transition to civilian life, with his former girlfriend, Nicole Santos, saying in a custody dispute over their baby daughter that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was suicidal. Santos alleged that Barnes was easily irritated, angry and depressed, and that he had an arsenal of weapons. She wrote that she feared for their daughter’s safety. Undated photos provided by police showed a shirtless, tattooed Barnes brandishing two guns.

The Army said he joined in 2007, listing Temecula, Calif., as his hometown. He served in Iraq from November 2007 to June 2008 and received a less-than-honorable discharge in 2009 for a drunken-driving arrest and for improperly transporting a privately owned weapon.