"Clone" Killing Rampage In Kentucky

[bloodrayne]

BIZARRE DISPUTE ERUPTS
FIREFIGHTER SHOT, KILLED

Suspect's wife also slain in disturbance

A domestic-violence shooting that spiraled into a six-hour standoff killed a Lexington woman, a firefighter and wounded at least three others yesterday. After hours of negotiations, police blasted chemical agents into a home in rural southern Fayette County.

Pat Hutchinson, 45, was apprehended about 9:45 p.m. He is accused of fatally shooting a woman in the house. She is thought to be his wife of 13 years, Fontaine, 60.

The third firefighter to die in the line of duty -- Brenda Cowan, 40, had just been promoted to lieutenant on Tuesday. Last night, Fire Chief Bob Hendricks' eyes welled with tears as he recalled pinning on her badge.

The other firefighter who was shot, Jim Sandford, was in stable condition last night, said Lexington fire department Maj. Greg Stapleton. A third firefighter, Mike Souder, suffered an apparent sprain and was treated and released.

A Lexington police officer also was injured in a car wreck traveling to the scene.

Hutchinson told the Herald-Leader that he shot Fontaine and then the paramedics because he was staging a coup against human clones.

"You're about to see armageddon," said Hutchinson, who spoke calmly about a vast conspiracy involving UFOs, alien clones and the CIA.

"I started with my wife," he said. "I shot her in the head. ... She's got a radio sticking in her skull."

Hutchinson talked to the Herald-Leader by phone around 4:30 p.m., after the shootings. A reporter trying to reach neighbors called him by accident.

Yesterday's events began about 3:45 p.m., when emergency units descended on the house at 8645 Adams Lane near Exit 99 off I-75 after a neighbor called, reporting that a woman had been shot there, police said. When Cowan and Sandford approached the house, they were gunned down, police said.

Four other paramedics who were trapped inside their vehicle waited for emergency response units to evacuate them safely.

The area around the barricade was filled with dozens of police, fire and emergency personnel.

Two helicopters landed on the interstate. I-75 South was blocked at the Clays Ferry exit and at Athens-Boonesboro Road, stalling traffic for miles.

For the next few hours, police negotiated with the man to come out of his house. By 7:26 p.m., power was cut at the interstate, blackening the area around his house. The power cut took out floodlights around the home and left one visible light on the front porch.

About an hour later, police blasted six chemical rounds into the house, according to police conversation on the scanner.

A separate group of officers, equipped with shotguns and search dogs, headed for the woods surrounding the house around 8:45 p.m. They fired at least six more rounds, according to the scanner. Officers also reported hearing coughing inside the house and running water.

Each time a round was fired, the pop echoed throughout the woods.

Hutchinson endured an hour and a half of the chemical agents, which irritate eyes, skin and nasal passages.

At the University of Kentucky Hospital earlier that evening, Mayor Teresa Isaac, Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson and various city officials arrived. Cowan was pronounced dead at 5:35 p.m., about half an hour before a coroner's van backed up to the emergency room entrance.

Firefighters mourned the passing of Cowan, a Union County native and the sister of former UK basketball player Fred Cowan.

At about 7:20 p.m. at fire station 18, firefighter paramedic Rob Volpenhein noticed that spaghetti still on the stove had burned. The other crew members apparently had left the stove on when they responded to the call. Volpenhein cleaned out the pot while shaking his head.

"She was the top of the line, the best at everything she did," said Hendricks, speaking emotionally to reporters at the scene last night.

Cowan's pastor, the Rev. Richard Gaines of Consolidated Baptist Church, was counseling firefighters yesterday evening at the Third Street station.

Fontaine Hutchinson, the woman thought to have been killed at the house, found joy in simple things such as cats, orchids and a brief stint with a storied band of trapeze artists, the Flying Wallendas.

Fontaine Hutchinson, listed as a Cypripendium expert on the Web site of a floral organization called the Cypripendium reginea Restoration Group, cultivated wild and domestic orchids at her home.

Fontaine was divorced from the late Lt. John Keene Van Houten-Gurnee, a retired Lexington police officer who died last year.