BURKESVILLE, Ky. -- A fugitive accused of shooting a Tennessee police officer and firing at a Kentucky trooper was killed in a shootout with authorities early Friday, ending a nearly week-long manhunt and leaving a community relieved on the eve of Halloween.
Floyd Ray Cook, 62, was killed in south-central Kentucky after being confronted by state troopers and a federal marshal searching an embankment, Kentucky State Police spokesman Billy Gregory said.
Cook had a handgun and exchanged gunfire with the officers south of Burkesville, Gregory said. No officers were injured.
The manhunt began after Cook reportedly shot and wounded an Algood, Tenn., police officer during a traffic stop last Saturday afternoon. Cook fled in a truck.
Just over an hour later, a Kentucky State Police trooper recognized Cook's vehicle and tried to stop it in rural Cumberland County, just beyond the Tennessee state line, authorities said. Cook tried to speed away but wrecked the vehicle and jumped out. Police said he opened fire on the officer, missed and ran into the woods.
Cumberland County Sheriff Scott Daniels said residents in the tightknit community near the border between Kentucky and Tennessee are relieved and now the children can go trick-or-treating without worry.
"People can rest easy now. They know he's not around here no more," Daniels said. "It's been a long, long week, and we're all glad it's over."
Convicted of rape in the 1970s, Cook was wanted in Marion County, Ky., for failing to comply with the sex offender registry, Sheriff Jimmy Clements said. He also has convictions for robbery, burglary, assault and riot, and is wanted in Hardin County on an indictment charging him with trafficking methamphetamine and tampering with evidence.
Authorities sent out public alerts. Schools in the Cumberland County district canceled classes for three days out of fear that students might cross Cook's path.
Officials believed that they had zeroed in on him late Wednesday. An investigator spotted a car associated with Cook at a gas station just off Interstate 65 north of Nashville, said Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Miller.
A marshal, believing Cook to be in the car, approached it, and the driver attempted to speed away, ramming two police cruisers and narrowly missing an officer on foot, the U.S. Marshals Service said. One officer shot at the car.
The car careened down a dead-end street, through a fence and into a ravine, Miller said. Two occupants fled on foot into the surrounding cornfields, he said, but neither turned out to be Cook.
Two of Cook's known associates, Katy McCarty, 35, and her boyfriend, Troy Wayne, 50, were found, arrested and were being held as fugitives, authorities said.
On Friday, Gregory said law enforcement officers caught up with Cook after a helicopter pilot, using a thermal imaging device, spotted him. Gregory said that information helped police narrow their search, and they found Cook hiding behind a tree.
A Section on 10/31/2015