Officer: Gun matches 'Honeybee' shootings

A handgun used by a 48-year-old man killed by a customer as he tried to rob a suburban tanning salon over the weekend matches the gun used in a shooting spree in October along the Illinois-Indiana border, a law enforcement officer said Tuesday.

Ballistics tests showed the gun used during the failed robbery on Saturday at an L.A. Tan in Orland Park was also used in the Oct. 5 shootings that left one dead and two wounded, said the officer, who has knowledge of the investigation but spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk about the tests results.

The robber — shot dead with his own gun after a tussle with a salon customer — was identified by police as Gary Amaya of Rankin, a tiny farming village some 60 miles south of where the border-area shootings occurred.

Will County Sheriff's office, which took the lead in investigating the Indiana-Illinois border shootings, have said only that Amaya is a potential suspect. Spokesman Ken Kaupas on Tuesday declined to comment further on the case.

As recently as last week, authorities said the investigation into the border shootings had gone cold and they didn't have any suspects. Initially, a police officer was wrongly arrested in the shootings, in which the gunman had reportedly asked one victim about honeybees before opening fire.

Amaya was killed during the Saturday night robbery attempt by 29-year-old Jason McDaniel, a customer who happened to walk in, Orland Park police say. In a written statement, Salon staff described McDaniel as "a true hero" and "our Superman."

Amaya had just ordered one woman inside the salon to tie up another when McDaniel walked in, police say. Amaya allegedly pointed the gun at McDaniel and ordered him to tie himself up.

McDaniel tried to reason with the robber, even offering him money and telling him that he had a baby girl at home, McDaniel has said.

As Amaya reached for rope in a bag, he put the gun on a counter: That's when McDaniel said he rushed him and snatched the gun, elbowing Amaya in the chin. McDaniel let off a shot — but the man kept coming at him. McDaniel shot again, Amaya fell and he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

In addition to describing McDaniel as a hero, L.A. Tan said it was giving him a $5,000 reward, as well as free tanning services for life for him and for his wife. In another bizarre twist, Amaya allegedly tried to handcuff a prostitute in Chicago while she was in his truck hours before he was killed during the robbery, Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy told the Chicago Tribune. She managed to get away, but Amaya fired a shot at her as she fled, McCarthy said.

"We were concerned that the woman was robbed or that she could in fact be dead," McCarthy said. Authorities located and interviewed her after Amaya was killed.

In Amaya's hometown in eastern Illinois, neighbors said Tuesday that he tended to keep to himself.

"He was a loner," said Marleta Stanton, 54, who lives across the street from the white-frame house Amaya lived in since his mother died in 2006 at age 74. "I mean, when he come home he never came out of the house. He never had no company — nothing."

He lost his job as a truck driver, she found out recently, but she wasn't sure precisely when or why. His mother, Dorothy Amaya, moved from outside the area to Rankin — which has a gas station, two bars and about 620 residents — a few years before her death, Stanton said. Court filings show he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 1995 while living in Morris, Ill. The case was dismissed in March 1996 because he failed to pay filing fees. Online case records indicate he apparently had no assets.

Police officer Brian Dorian initially was arrested in the October shootings, but he was released days later and cleared of any suspicion after detectives verified he'd been home logged on to his computer the morning of the attacks.

Dorian's attorneys have said that many people still viewed him with suspicion even after authorities ruled him out as a suspect and that he even received hate mail accusing him of being the killer.

The shootings began in the morning of Oct. 5 at a rural construction site in Illinois. The gunman shot and killed Rolando Alonso, 45, of Hammond, Ind., and wounded Joshua Garza, a 19-year-old from Dyer, Ind. Later, farmer Keith Dahl, 64, was wounded near Lowell, Ind.

Wanted-poster sketches of the shooting suspect remained up around villages in the area for months and officers kept a lookout for light blue Chevy pickup trucks similar to the one the gunman drove.