REDDING, Calif. (AP) – A Northern California man who vanished while officials searched for his missing infant daughter stole a car at gunpoint and later died in a shootout with deputies, authorities said.
Matthew Graham, whose 6-month-old daughter went missing July 2 from his Happy Valley home, about 150 miles north of Sacramento, stole a couple’s car Monday and led authorities on a chase, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department said.
Michael Prado said Graham, a stranger, robbed him and his wife of their car Monday morning after sleeping in the yard of their Shasta Lake home overnight.
Authorities traced the car through its navigation system and chased it 48 miles north to Dunsmuir. Graham got out of the vehicle, holed up in a nearby garage and exchanged gunfire with authorities, the sheriff’s department said. Deputies shot and killed him, the agency said.
Graham, 23, became a person of interest in his daughter’s disappearance after giving inconsistent statements to investigators. He stole a semi-automatic gun from his mother Saturday after hearing the search for his daughter had turned up a possible lead, authorities said. The girl, Ember, has not been found.