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2008 TPA Better Newspaper Contest

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The Highlander (Marble Falls)

Murder suspect nabbed

Sought in six killings, manhunt ends in New York.

BY FRED AFFLERBACH

A hunt for a man suspected of a reign of terror that left a total of six people dead in two Texas counties and a town in Pennsylvania ended about noon Monday on Long Island, almost 1,800 miles from its beginning in the Hill Country.

Paul G. Devoe III, wanted for the shooting death of a bartender at O'Neill's Sports Tavern in Marble Falls Friday night, and the killings of four more people Sunday in Jonestown — a small lakeside community 30 miles east of there — was arrested by U.S. Marshals and Suffolk County, N.Y. officers without resistance.

Roger Wade, spokesman for the Travis County Sheriff's office, said U.S. Marshals "tracked him down to a house in Shirley, New York and took him into custody without incident."

A U.S. Marshals New York-New Jersey division said Devoe, who is expected to be arraigned Tuesday, was armed at the time of the arrest.

His alleged crime spree began about 6 p.m. Friday night in western Llano County. Sheriff's officers say Devoe held a gun to a woman's head, and then "sprayed the room with pistol fire," in the house they were sharing. The woman escaped, and Devoe drove away in the victim's pickup, police said.

Devoe, 43, next showed up at O'Neill's Sports Tavern in downtown Marble Falls.

Inside the bar, witnesses said Devoe put a pistol to the head of another woman he was believed to have been acquainted with. An employee of the bar who was seated at the same table said the man pulled the trigger to his gun three or four times, but the weapon misfired.

With one person grabbing at the back of the man's shirt, and another reaching for the pistol, the suspect headed toward the back of the building in pursuit of the woman.

As the situation inside O'Neill's grew frantic, bartender Michael Jay Allred, who was installing knobs on restroom doors in the rear of the building approached the gunman and asked him to put away the pistol.

The gunman then shot Allred once in the chest before fleeing through a back door.

Police say when they arrived at O'Neill's at approximately 8 p.m., they found Allred, 41, fatally wounded. He was pronounced dead at 10 p.m. at the scene by Precinct Three Justice of the Peace Peggy Simon.

Marble Falls police would not release details of their investigation, or interviews with eyewitnesses. However, Capt. Floyd Goodwin said that he had not seen in any report the employee's account of what happened inside the bar.

O'Neill's opened about nine months ago at 207 Main Street, next door to the Marble Falls Police Station.

Goodwin said at the time of the shooting, there were no officers at the station and staff on site at the time did not report hearing a gunshot. A dispatcher was alerted when "a woman came in screaming."

Police said Devoe was last seen southbound on the US 281 bridge driving a blue Dodge Dakota taken from the home of the woman he allegedly terrorized in Llano.

The pickup was found Sunday afternoon in front of a house on Hobby Lane in Jonestown, the Travis County spokesman said.

Inside, investigators — called to the scene when friends couldn't contact the occupants of the home — found four bodies. All were pronounced dead at the scene at 8:36 p.m., several hours later.

Investigators said a 2001 Saturn station wagon, taken from the Jonestown resident was later found in Pennsylvania near the scene of a murder in Greencastle.

They said yet another vehicle disappeared from the site of the Pennsylvania killing and was found on Long Island where Devoe was arrested.

Authorites were not sure how Devoe made the 1,800-mile trip from Central Texas to Long Island in about one day.

Devoe is facing possible charges in Llano County for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and murder charges in Burnet and Travis Counties.

U.S. Marshals office said authorities in Pennsylvania had matched a vehicle at a murder scene in Franklin County Pennsylvania with one of the Texas' victims.