ALAMOSA, Colo. — Officers went door to door in a rural area of southern Colorado on Sunday as planes searched overhead for a man suspected of shooting three people, killing one, and then fleeing on foot to farmland after a botched carjacking.
Suspect Henry Corral, 44, should be considered armed and dangerous, police in the small city of Alamosa said.
“It’s a huge area, probably almost 30 square kilometers, that we have to work on. There is still a lot we need to do,” Alamosa Police Chief George Dingfelder said of the search. “It’s rural farmland, and in some places you might have three or four houses in a square mile.”
Dingfelder declined to discuss a possible motive. Corral has an extensive criminal history, including prior convictions for reckless homicide in 2004 and assault in 2016, public records show.
Officers found the three victims after responding to a report of shots fired at The Sunset Inn in Alamosa around 2 a.m. Sunday. The city of about 10,000 residents is located about 30 miles from the New Mexico border.
One of the victims died, the two others were transported to a hospital in critical condition.
Corral fled the scene in a vehicle he crashed when it went off the road about six to seven miles outside Alamosa, Dingfelder said.
The suspect then tried to carjack a vehicle belonging to a Good Samaritan who heard the crash and came to check on it, Dingfelder said. The attempt failed when Corral got into an argument with the other person, who grabbed their keys and ran away, while Corral ran in the other direction toward farmland, the chief said.
Late Sunday, authorities said an arrest warrant was issued for Corral on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, tampering with evidence, attempted aggravated robbery and possession of a weapon by a previous offender.
Corral separately faced charges of domestic violence, violation of a protective order and assault in two other recent criminal cases in Alamosa County, court records show.
The search involved federal, state and local law enforcement in an area south and west of Alamosa that expanded late Sunday.
Authorities also asked homeowners in the area with doorbell cameras or surveillance systems to check them and contact police if they noticed anything suspicious.