Gunman shoots pregnant sister, deputy, then kills himself

A day after a horrific shooting in a peaceful Vancouver neighborhood, detectives spent the day figuring out what had played out the night before:

o A pregnant woman shot once in the stomach.

o A brother who retreated to an outbuilding after shooting his sister, and then fired at a sheriff’s deputy.

o Finally, after a three-hour standoff with SWAT team officers, the gunman’s apparent suicide.

The injured woman was identified as Angela M. Pyle, 34, who is five months pregnant. She was listed in serious condition Wednesday evening at Southwest Washington Medical Center. At her request, no public information was being given about the baby.

It was the gunshot wound suffered by Pyle at about 8 p.m. that sparked the standoff at the home, 3903 N.E. 62nd Ave., between officers and her brother, 38-year-old Anthony J. Pyle.

After he shot his sister, Pyle retreated to a garage-turned-apartment on the property. He was holed up there about 9 p.m. when officers burst in and he fired on them, striking deputy sheriff Gordon Conroy in the torso. Conroy’s ballistic vest prevented the bullet from causing injury.

Conroy “is doing fine,” said Sgt. Scott Schanaker on Wednesday afternoon.

Without the vest, Conroy’s injuries could have been critical, Schanaker said. “It stopped the bullet. It did what it’s supposed to do,” he added.

The altercation came to an end about midnight when Anthony Pyle apparently turned the handgun on himself. He died of a gunshot wound to the head.

“It was really two separate incidents,” said Schanaker, explaining one incident was treating Angela Pyle and the other was detaining Anthony Pyle.

Paramedics rushed to the home at 8:03 p.m. after Angela Pyle reported she’d been shot once in the stomach. The first responders needed only a few minutes to determine the house was secure enough to send in paramedics to help the injured woman.

From there, officers shifted their focus to locating Anthony Pyle.

After Conroy was shot, they negotiated with Pyle, launched tear gas at him, armed themselves with shields to protect against his threats to shoot, and deployed a robot with a video camera to determine his whereabouts. One of those shields ended up in Anthony Pyle’s possession, but it remains unclear how exactly he got it.

It was by way of the robot that SWAT officers learned Pyle had killed himself. It captured video of a man slumped on the floor, naked, with blood on top of his shoulder.

‘Real strange’

David Simmons leaned against his truck Wednesday, watching as police processed the scene.

Simmons said he only knew Anthony Pyle from a brief exchange at a yard sale.

“He’s just real strange,” Simmons said. “He just kind of did what he wanted to do.”

Carroll Pankievich and her fiance, Jowel Gonzales, live a few houses down from the Pyle residence.

“I’d never even seen them,” Pankievich, 26, said of Anthony and Angela Pyle. She and Gonzales have only lived there for six weeks.

But on Tuesday night, she heard them.

“We heard a man and a woman yelling, and door slams,” said Pankievich, who spoke as Gonzales, 34, stood nearby. “The gunfire is what really made us know what was going on.”

“We could count five, six shots in a row, easily,” Gonzales added. “It happened several times.”

Schanaker said he did not yet know how many shots were fired, and that the investigation into precisely what happened, and why, is ongoing.

Per department policy, Conroy, a 12-year veteran deputy, and the other officers who responded will be placed on critical incident leave.

The other officers are Deputy Brian Ellithorpe, Deputy Tyler Trenda, Vancouver Police Sgt. Greg Raquer and Cpl. Marshall Henderson.

The home was owned by Sandra L. Pyle, according to county records. Pyle, who was born in 1949, died last year, according to a court record and a death notice published in The Columbian.

Bob Albrecht: 360-735-4522; bob.albrecht@columbian.com.