Police shooting suspect killed after weeklong hunt

ST. LOUIS -- A suspect in a police officer's shooting who was shot and killed in Southern Illinois after a search of more than a week evaded capture by hiding in a sparsely populated national forest where he once had lived, a county sheriff said Monday.

Dracy "Clint" Pendleton, 34, of Bellflower, Illinois, died in a shootout Sunday at an abandoned house 250 miles away in the Shawnee National Forest, according to the Illinois State Police. An FBI agent was wounded, but the agency said Monday he was expected to survive.

Pope County Sheriff Jerry Suits said it took his deputies 11 days to find Pendleton when he was charged in a 2012 domestic dispute. Court records indicate Pendleton was wanted on an arrest warrant for felony stalking and aggravated assault while discharging a firearm but pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of aggravated assault on a handicapped person or a victim over 60. He served 30 days in jail.

"It was a frightening situation," Suits said, describing precautions during the manhunt that included rerouting school-bus routes to avoid areas where Pendleton was believed to be hiding. "We're glad it's over."

Authorities had closed the Lusk Creek Wilderness Area in the national forest since May 9, when a stolen pickup truck they believed Pendleton was using was found.

State police said Pendleton was seen after midnight Saturday running into woods near a church cemetery, carrying a rifle and wearing a bandolier shoulder belt that holds bullet cartridges. A church deacon on Friday reported a break-in. Money and food were missing, and bloody bandages were found in a trash can, the sheriff said. Suits said he was told Pendleton had been shot in the neck the previous week.

State Police Col. Tad Williams said Pendleton opened fire on officers as they approached the Eddyville home. He was found by a police robot in the home about 5 a.m. after a firefight with state police, FBI agents and sheriff's deputies. Authorities did not say whether Pendleton was killed by police or he took his own life.

Suits estimated 200 law-enforcement officers were involved in the operation, including federal marshals and Forest Service agents.

The name and condition of the wounded federal agent was not disclosed. FBI spokesman Brad Ware said Monday the agent was expected to survive.

Authorities had been searching for Pendleton since the May 7 shooting of a police officer in Mahomet, Illinois. The incident sparked a fatal collision when a trooper pursuing Pendleton struck and killed a 26-year-old woman in Decatur, Illinois, some 45 miles to the southwest.

Pendleton initially was charged with attempted murder in the shooting of the officer, who was treated and released from a hospital the next morning. The charge was amended to aggravated battery with a firearm.

Pendleton's father said Monday his son -- the father of two boys, ages 1 and 2 -- recently had separated from his wife and was staying with a friend 15 miles away in Mahomet.

The elder Pendleton, who shares the same name as his son, said the May 7 police shooting happened after an officer with whom the younger Pendleton "had a history" went to his home after a traffic stop involving a another officer. That incident involved a broken tail light for which a warning was given, although Dracy Pendleton reportedly "got agitated and sped away," his father said.

"We don't know what exactly transpired," he said. "Something escalated it. That's when everything broke loose."