LINCOLN CITY, Ore. (AP) - Police stormed a motel room in a seaside
town Tuesday evening and captured a Washington state man suspected of
killing his grandparents, ending a multistate search and a tense daylong
standoff at the motel.
"Everyone's safe. No one's hurt," Lincoln City Police Chief Keith Kilian said.
Police had spent much of the day trying to persuade
Michael Boysen to surrender. After breaching the motel room door, they
stormed in and captured him.
Boysen was found lying on the floor on his back with a self-inflicted cut, Kilian said. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
Boysen was alive, but the severity of his injury was not immediately clear, Kilian said.
Law enforcement authorities in Washington state confirmed Boysen was alive.
"We're certainly glad it's over and nobody else got
hurt. We're glad they were able to take him into custody alive," said
King County Sheriff John Urquhart.
"It sounds like they got to him in time," Urquhart said.
The bodies of Boysen's grandparents were found
Saturday in their suburban Seattle home, a day after Boysen was released
from prison and was greeted with a welcome home party.
During Tuesday's siege in the Oregon tourist town
of Lincoln City, police pointed rifles at the motel, fired blasts from a
water cannon and used a bullhorn to try to persuade Boysen to give up.
Police used a robot equipped with a video camera
and a microphone to communicate with him. The robot was sent onto a
balcony outside the motel room. Police breached the door and were able
to communicate with Boysen through the robot.
When Boysen didn't come out on his own, police went in after him.
"We tried to negotiate," Kilian said. "We saw an opening that didn't compromise the safety of our officers."
Boysen checked into the motel Monday night under
his own name but wasn't recognized until Tuesday morning, when a desk
clerk saw a television story about the case and called police, Kilian
said.
Boysen, 26, made threats against members of his
family and law enforcement while behind bars, Corrections Department
spokesman Chad Lewis said Tuesday. But authorities didn't learn of the
threats until after the bodies of the grandparents were found and
authorities had started looking for Boysen.
"Sources went to our staff at the Monroe Correctional Center and told us he had been threatening to do all this," Lewis said.
The information was passed on to King County
deputies, and that's why Sheriff Urquhart called Boysen extremely
dangerous at a Monday news conference. Investigators also determined
that Boysen had been searching the Internet for gun shows.
Boysen just finished serving nine months in prison
on a burglary conviction, Lewis said. He had no violent infractions in
prison - "nothing extraordinary," Lewis said.
He served a previous sentence between 2006 and
February 2011 for four robbery convictions. Those convictions were
related to an addiction to narcotic painkillers, Lewis said.
Boysen's grandparents picked him up from prison
Friday and drove him to meet his probation officer and to get an
identification card from the Department of Licensing. They held a
welcome home party for him Friday night.
Boysen's mother discovered the bodies Saturday
evening. She had been called by a family member who became concerned
that the couple hadn't answered their door.
Authorities haven't said how they died.
The motive for the killings remains unknown, King County sheriff's Sgt. Cindi West said.
"Between the family and detectives we have no
idea," she said. "It's just bizarre. The family loved and supported him
the whole time he was in prison."
On Tuesday, the King County medical examiner's
office identified the couple as Robert R. Taylor, 82, and Norma J.
Taylor, 80. They died Saturday. The cause and manner of their deaths
remains under investigation, the medical examiner said.
Urquhart said it was not known why Boysen fled to Oregon.
"We didn't know he had gone to Oregon, had no particular reason to look there."
King County sent two detectives to Oregon to talk
with Boysen, Urquhart said. He'll have to go through extradition, then
King County hopes to "get him back here for trial," he said.
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