Oregon murder suspect arrested after Washington carjacking

A man wanted for murder in Klamath Falls, Ore., was nabbed in Woodland on Sunday morning following a break-in at a house in Cougar and a nearby carjacking, according to police.

Shortly before 4 a.m., police were dispatched to the home in Cougar, in the 16700 block of Lewis River Road. There, residents reported that a man and a woman had broken into the house and assaulted them, according to a news release from the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office. Their injuries were not life-threatening, police said.

While police were on their way, someone else called 911 to report that a man and woman had stolen his vehicle at gunpoint.

Deputies from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the Woodland Police Department and the Washington State Patrol assisted Cowlitz deputies as they responded. Police found that the carjacking victim’s car had been ditched near the scene of the burglary in Cougar, and learned that a red Nissan was missing from the home.

Meanwhile, Woodland police Officer Derek Kelley noticed a red Nissan traveling west on state Highway 503, a few miles west of Cougar. A man was behind the wheel, and he had a female passenger, according to the news release.

The driver of the Nissan refused to stop, the news release said, and Cowlitz sheriff’s Deputy Danny O’Neill used a police-vehicle maneuver to stop the car on Dike Access Road, about a mile south of the Woodland Wal-Mart. The suspects, identified by police as 36-year-old Matthew D. Reyes and 31-year-old Kareesa M. Deen, were taken into custody “without further difficulties,” the news release said.

The two will face first-degree robbery charges, charges for the car-jacking, and more charges are possible, police said.

Reyes was wanted in the killing of 57-year-old Rick Aston, whose throat was cut at a motel in Klamath Falls early this month, according to The Associated Press.