Updated at 4:12 p.m. PDT
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — A standoff with an armed stabbing suspect who barricaded himself inside a Northern California hotel room with his girlfriend ended Thursday after police found him dead, authorities said.
The San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/rajVmp ) reports that the standoff, which temporarily shut down a nearby freeway as it began Wednesday morning, came to an end after a special camera sent into the room confirmed that Peter James Thomas, 38, was dead.
Police would not say how Thomas died but said it wasn't from any law enforcement action. He died sometime overnight, they said.
San Rafael police spokeswoman Margo Rohrbacher said the girlfriend was taken into the department's care and not under arrest. "She's going to be interviewed and debriefed by our investigators to determine what went on here and what her involvement was," Rohrbacher told the Chronicle.
Police investigating Sunday's stabbing of a clerk at a nearby supermarket tracked Thomas to the Extended Stay hotel off Interstate 580.
Shortly after the standoff began, a gunshot was fired out the window of his second-floor hotel room toward the freeway, prompting authorities to evacuate the hotel and halt traffic on a stretch of I-580, including the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. No one was injured by the gunshot.
The bridge reopened about an hour later, but traffic remained diverted around the hotel for the rest of the day, creating commute headaches on the busy freeway. It was fully reopened after midnight after authorities placed a large steel plate outside Thomas' window to block any more bullets from endangering motorists.