Police in Washington hunting for a gunman who shot and killed a ranger after a routine traffic stop in Mount Rainier National Park say they have found a body.
The ranger, a 34-year-old mother of two young children, was killed yesterday after she stopped the gunman's vehicle at a roadblock shortly after another ranger tried to stop the same car about a mile away, park spokesman Kevin Bacher said in a statement.
Authorities closed the park on the west side of the snow-capped Cascade mountain range, which receives about two million visitors a year, after the shooting.
The shooting came on an unseasonably mild New Year's holiday when visitors flocked to the park, about 130kms southeast of Seattle, for popular winter activities including snowboarding and cross-country skiing.
A Pierce County sheriff's spokesman told Seattle KIRO-7 television that law enforcement had named Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, as a person of interest who could be involved in the shooting and who may be heavily armed with assault rifles and body armour.
It was not immediately confirmed that the body was that of Mr Barnes.
Earlier, the King County Sheriff's Office said the same man was also wanted for questioning in a shooting at a New Year's party earlier in the day at a house in Skyway, just outside of Seattle, in which four people were wounded.
Officials could not give a motive for the shooting or say why rangers tried to stop the gunman's car.
Park authorities described Ms Anderson as a committed public servant who was married to another ranger at the national park.
