Okla. crime rampage suspect killed in shootout with police

(Oklahoma Highway Patrol)

Michael Dale Vance Jr. — on the run for more than a week in connection with the shooting of as many as six people, including two police officers — was killed Sunday night after a shootout with authorities in Oklahoma.

U.S. marshals told KFOR TV that a Dewey County sheriff’s deputy pulled over a truck with Vance inside at about 9:30 local time Sunday night. After a brief shootout in which a deputy was shot twice in the arm, officers from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol shot and killed Vance.

In a statement on Facebook, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office said “we were informed double homicide suspect Michael Dale Vance was killed near Leedey in Dewey County,” about 130 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

The deputy shot did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

Vance had been the subject of an intense statewide manhunt for a week, after two men, one of them Vance, according to police, opened fire on two Wellston, Okla., police officers investigating a disturbance on Sunday, Oct. 23. Both officers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities feared Vance had a “hit list” with as many as eight names, the AP reported.

This June 2010 photo provided by the Kay County Detention Center shows Michael Vance. (Kay County Detention Center via AP)

One of the alleged shooters, identified by authorities as Tony Heavner, was captured shortly after the incident.

Vance, who was wounded, reportedly took off in a patrol vehicle, making appearances in two Facebook Live videos along the way, wearing a backwards baseball cap and a bloodstained T-Shirt, as The Post’s Lindsey Bever reported. 

Authorities believe Vance was also connected to a nearby carjacking in which a woman was shot and wounded.

Hours after the shootout with police, authorities spotted his car in Luther, about six miles away. When a tactical team went in to capture him, they found a body outside the home and another inside. The victims were identified as Ronald and Valerie Kay Wilkson.

Police also found shell casings from an AK-47.

Then, early Monday morning, Oct. 24, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reported that a man suspected to be Vance had shot a convenience store clerk in Sayre, Okla.

More details are expected Monday.

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