Homicide suspect identified, may have been killed in crash

Vancouver police have identified an 18-year-old Seattle-area woman as the suspect in last week’s downtown Vancouver homicide, but she might be dead.

Police identified Ailiana Siufanua of Des Moines as the suspect in the fatal shooting of Bentley Brookes, a 58-year-old Camas man who worked at Pacific Bullion Precious Metals, 701 Main St., according to the Vancouver Police Department. Brookes’ body was found in the shop on the morning of Nov. 25.

Now investigators are working to determine if Siufanua was killed in a fatal vehicle crash Monday night in California. A woman thought to be Siufanua and a man, Thomas Leae, 21, were involved in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 5 in Yolo County, northwest of Sacramento, Calif., according to Vancouver police.

Leae was driving south in the northbound lanes when the California Highway Patrol tried to pull him over, according to police. His vehicle struck a tree, leaving him seriously wounded and killing a female passenger, police said.

The Vancouver Police Department said it’s waiting for the Yolo County coroner to confirm the identity of the female killed in the crash.

In the days after the homicide, the police department publicly circulated images of the shooting suspect taken from surveillance video at the precious-metals shop. On Monday, officers identified the woman in those photos as Siufanua, police said.