Suspect in East Texas shootings fatally shoots himself

CLEVELAND, Texas – An hours-long search for a man suspected of shooting four people in East Texas ended Wednesday afternoon when the 65-year-old took his own life, authorities said.

Heavily-armed officers from several law enforcement agencies had been searching through the morning and early afternoon for Pavol Vido, who police said shot and killed a woman and wounded two men inside a plumbing company Wednesday morning.

Vido then fled in a white 2004 Mercury before injuring a pursuing sheriff’s deputy in a gunfight outside a veterinary clinic east of Cleveland, a city of 8,000 people about 50 miles northeast of Houston, police said.

Officer’s later found the car Vido had been driving and then search dogs led them about 50 yards (46 meters) to a boat where he was hiding, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Vido shot himself with a handgun when confronted, the agency said.

Officials have identified the wounded deputy as Richard Whitten. He was flown to a Houston-area hospital and is in stable condition, police said.

The names of the two other wounded men and the dead woman have not been released, and the motive for the shootings is unclear.

Public schools in Cleveland went into lock down for several hours as police searched or Vido.