Police: Connecticut man wanted in stabbings killed in Texas
A Connecticut man wanted by police in a random stabbing that left a Tennessee man dead and his wife wounded was killed Monday after stabbing a deputy in Texas, authorities say.
News 12 Staff
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Jun 24, 2019, 4:39 PM
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Updated 1,765 days ago
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Connecticut man wanted by police in a random stabbing that left a Tennessee man dead and his wife wounded was killed Monday after stabbing a deputy in Texas, authorities say.
According to the Texas Highway Patrol, a Gaines County deputy came across Peter Alexander Bohning, of Kent, Connecticut, while responding to a call of a suspicious person and vehicle early Monday in Seminole, a city of about 7,500 people near the rural Texas-New Mexico border.
When the deputy asked him for identification, Bohning stabbed the deputy, Texas Highway Patrol Sgt. Oscar Villarreal said in a news release. The deputy then shot the 34-year-old Bohning, who was pronounced dead at a hospital in Seminole. The deputy was flown to a Lubbock hospital, where he was in stable condition Monday afternoon, Villarreal said.
Bohning was driving a gray Toyota Camry at the time. That car matches the description of a car Metro Nashville Police believed Bohning had fled in after a stabbing in that Tennessee city.
The car belonged to Leigh Ann and Donald Zirkle, who had been sitting on their back porch around 3:30 p.m. Friday when a stranger approached and asked for directions before attacking them, according to police. Leigh Ann Zirkle ran through the house and out the front door before collapsing in the street, where neighbors saw her and rendered aid, a police statement said.
Officers then found Donald Zirkle critically wounded at the rear of the house, it said. The man was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he died.
A silver Subaru sedan with Connecticut license plates was parked in the street at the side of the Zirkles' house with its rear doors open. The car was registered to Bohning.
The attack on the couple triggered an immediate manhunt for the suspect.
On Sunday, Bohning's mother, Sue Ellen Bohning, told The News-Times that her son had mental problems and had left home about a week earlier. She told the newspaper that murder "doesn't sound like him."
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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas.
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This story has been corrected to show that the injured Gaines County deputy was taken to a Lubbock hospital.
According to the Texas Highway Patrol, a Gaines County deputy came across Peter Alexander Bohning, of Kent, Connecticut, while responding to a call of a suspicious person and vehicle early Monday in Seminole, a city of about 7,500 people near the rural Texas-New Mexico border.
When the deputy asked him for identification, Bohning stabbed the deputy, Texas Highway Patrol Sgt. Oscar Villarreal said in a news release. The deputy then shot the 34-year-old Bohning, who was pronounced dead at a hospital in Seminole. The deputy was flown to a Lubbock hospital, where he was in stable condition Monday afternoon, Villarreal said.
Bohning was driving a gray Toyota Camry at the time. That car matches the description of a car Metro Nashville Police believed Bohning had fled in after a stabbing in that Tennessee city.
The car belonged to Leigh Ann and Donald Zirkle, who had been sitting on their back porch around 3:30 p.m. Friday when a stranger approached and asked for directions before attacking them, according to police. Leigh Ann Zirkle ran through the house and out the front door before collapsing in the street, where neighbors saw her and rendered aid, a police statement said.
Officers then found Donald Zirkle critically wounded at the rear of the house, it said. The man was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he died.
A silver Subaru sedan with Connecticut license plates was parked in the street at the side of the Zirkles' house with its rear doors open. The car was registered to Bohning.
The attack on the couple triggered an immediate manhunt for the suspect.
On Sunday, Bohning's mother, Sue Ellen Bohning, told The News-Times that her son had mental problems and had left home about a week earlier. She told the newspaper that murder "doesn't sound like him."
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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas.
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This story has been corrected to show that the injured Gaines County deputy was taken to a Lubbock hospital.
(Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
