Police have arrested a Hopkinsville man in connection with the fatal shooting of an eastern Illinois deputy early Wednesday and a carjacking in neighboring Missouri a couple of hours later.
An Illinois State Police SWAT team arrested Ray Tate, 40, on Wednesday afternoon at a home in Carlyle, Missouri, where Tate allegedly committed a home invasion and took the homeowner hostage in addition to the carjacking victim, police said.
Tate was charged with murder by the Wayne County State’s Attorney and lodged in the Clinton County Jail.
Neither the carjacking victim nor the home invasion victim was injured, police said.
No other suspect was being sought, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The Wayne County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that Deputy Sean Riley responded to a motorist assist call on Interstate 64 near Mill Shoals around 5 a.m. Wednesday. A second officer who arrived at the scene found Riley dead. The deputy’s squad car was later found abandoned on I-64.
The search for the suspect extended to St. Peters, Missouri, where police believe a man involved in a shooting and carjacking shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday at a QuikTrip convenience store was the same person who killed the deputy.
St. Peters police spokeswoman Melissa Doss said in an email that “there was evidence at the QuikTrip scene which indicates the suspect was also involved in the series of crimes which occurred in Illinois earlier this morning.” She declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.
St. Peters police said the man drove away from the convenience store in a car that was later found near Interstate 70 in nearby O’Fallon, Missouri. The suspect then stole a white pickup truck, police said.
Carlyle is 47 miles east of St. Louis.
(Photo l-r: Deputy Sean Riley, murder suspect Ray Tate)
The Associated Press
