Trooper takes shotgun blast from wanted man, but kills him

It dosen't pay to shoot a Texas State Trooper.

EDEN — A man sought on a murder warrant in the death of a San Angelo woman died in a shootout with a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper.

The DPS said Manuel Alcantar, 20, shot the trooper with a 12-gauge shotgun while the officer was trying to identify Alcantar and the driver of a car the trooper stopped in Eden Wednesday night. The trooper, whose name was not immediately released, returned fire, fatally wounding Alcantar. The trooper was treated and released, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported in its online edition Thursday.

Alcantar's body has been sent to Lubbock for an autopsy.

Texas Rangers are investigating.

The driver of the car, Dionisio Anibal Saucedo Jr., 21, was being held in the Tom Green County Jail on Thursday on a charge of attempted capital murder of a peace officer. His bond was set at $1 million. It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Trooper Shawn Baxter, a DPS spokesman, said the charge against Saucedo, Alcantar's cousin, stems from the portion of the penal code that says a person can be charged with the same offense as a suspect if he fails to make a reasonable effort to stop the suspect, the newspaper reported.

Authorities had been looking for Alcantar, who was named in a murder warrant for the shooting death earlier Wednesday of Lynda Fairchild, 38, of San Angelo. Fairchild's daughter, 18-year-old Heather Flores, was wounded in the shooting at a San Angelo home.

Sabrina Castro, 18, told the newspaper that an argument led to the shooting. She said Flores and Alcantar had a relationship and a baby.

Eden is about 40 miles south-southeast of San Angelo in West Texas.

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