Published Sunday, June 23, 2024 | 11:22 a.m.
Updated Sunday, June 23, 2024 | 5:23 p.m.
ALAMOSA, Colorado (AP) — Officers went door to door in a rural area of southern Colorado on Sunday as aircraft searched overhead for a man suspected of shooting three people, killing one, and then fleeing on foot into farmland after a failed carjacking.
Suspect Henry Corral, 44, should be considered armed and dangerous, said police in the small city of Alamosa.
“It’s a huge area — probably almost 30 square miles that we’ve got to work. There’s still a lot we’ve got to do,” Alamosa Police Chief George Dingfelder said of the search. “It’s rural farmland, and and some places you might have three or four houses in a square mile.”
Dingfelder declined to discuss a possible motive. Corral has an extensive criminal history that includes prior convictions for reckless manslaughter in 2004 and felony assault in 2016, public records show.
Officers found the three victims after responding to a report of shots fired at The Sunset Inn in Alamosa at about 2 a.m. Sunday. The city of about 10,000 people is roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the New Mexico border.
One of the victims died, and the two others were airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.
Corral fled the scene in a vehicle that he crashed when he went off the road about six or seven miles (10 or 11 kilometers) outside of Alamosa, Dingfelder said.
The suspect then tried to carjack a vehicle belonging to a good Samaritan who had heard the accident and came to check on it, Dingfelder said. The attempt failed when Corral got into an argument with the other person, who took their keys and ran off, while Corral ran in the other direction into farmland, the chief said.
Late Sunday, authorities said, an arrest warrant was issued for Corral involving allegations of first-degree murder, attempted murder, tampering with evidence, attempted aggravated robbery and possession of a weapon by a previous offender.
Corral separately was facing charges of domestic violence, violation of a protection order and felony assault from two other recent criminal cases in Alamosa County, court records show.
The search involved federal, state and local law enforcement in an area south and west of Alamosa that was expanded late Sunday.
Authorities also asked area homeowners with doorbell cameras or surveillance systems to check them and contact police if they noticed anything suspicious.
