Two Texas deputies shot dead after service for fallen comrades

PAYNE SPRINGS, Texas - A gunman killed two deputies and wounded another before he was shot yesterday, hours after the officers participated in a memorial to honor peace officers slain in the line of duty, authorities said.

The Henderson County sheriff's deputies were shot while responding to a domestic disturbance near this East Texas town, sheriff's Lt. Pat McWilliams said. The wounded deputy's injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

The gunman was taken to a hospital. McWilliams said he didn't know his condition.

Rebecca Berkley, spokeswoman for East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, said the hospital had been advised to expect two patients. She had no immediate information on the condition of the two people.

One of the officers killed was in uniform, and the other was a plainclothes investigator, McWilliams said.

A woman who was in the home was not injured and was being interviewed by Texas Rangers. Television footage showed police cars lining a dirt road near the farmhouse in the rural area.

In South Carolina, meanwhile, authorities arrested two more men as they searched for a missing constable whose empty cruiser was found in flames, police said yesterday.

The constable, Robert Lee Bailey, disappeared Monday night while patrolling the small community of Lincolnville, about 20 miles northwest of Charleston. His hat and gun were found in a yard, and his torched cruiser was discovered behind a church off nearby Interstate 26.

The two men in custody were arrested on unrelated charges, but they are associates of Walter Fayall III, who is considered a "person of interest" in Bailey's disappearance, said Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon. Fayall, 24, was arrested in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday on federal weapons charges. *