LITTLE ROCK — ALGER, Wash. - Authorities on Wednesday were trying to determine what set off a shooting and stabbing rampage that left six people dead and four wounded.
The mother of suspect Isaac Zamora said he is "desperately mentally ill" and had been living in the woods. Dennise Zamora said one of those killed Tuesday was a sheriff's deputy who had tried to help their family for years.
"We're so devastated for the families," she told The Associated Press by telephone. "I wish it would have been him or me that was killed. That's how deeply I feel about it."
Isaac Zamora, 28, was being held Wednesday on suspicion of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder and is being held in lieu of $5 million bond.
Zamora had just served a sixmonth jail sentence for drug possession in Skagit County.
The shootings began close to Dennise Zamora's house near the small town of Alger, about 70 miles north of Seattle. They continued amid a high-speed police pursuit on Interstate 5 and ended in Mount Vernon, about 20 miles south of Alger, when Isaac Zamora turned himself in at a sheriff's office.
The dead included two construction workers killed in Alger and a motorist shot along I-5 near a rest stop.
"Some of these are just random shootings," Trooper Keith Leary said.
There are eight crime scenes, which are being investigated by more than 100 people from 15 different agencies, Leary said Wednesday.
"We're not speculating as to what happened," Leary said. "It's too early to tell what took place at each scene."
Front Section, Pages 2 on 09/04/2008