Gunman who killed Chinese student in US carjacking surrenders after manhunt

United States authorities are trying to figure out how a longtime criminal recently released from an Alabama prison ended up in a Utah canyon where he was suspected of killing a 23-year-old devout Mormon immigrant from China.

Guo Chenwei came to the United States in 2012 and dreamed of opening a consulting firm. He was studying computer science in his first year at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Friends said the 23-year-old smiled easily, loved to dance and could be found trekking canyons around Salt Lake City, like the one where his body was found Monday night.

A 24-year-old ex-convict was suspected of shooting the student to death after demanding Guo’s car, according to Utah authorities.

Police found Guo’s body still in his vehicle in a canyon just east of campus, prompting a campus-wide lockdown and a massive overnight manhunt at the school and in the rugged foothills nearby.

Austin Boutain surrendered without incident Tuesday afternoon at a city library several kilometres away, about 15 hours after Guo’s body was found.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the Chinese embassy in the United States immediately requested information from police, and “urged police to quickly break the case” and provide assistance to the family.

She also noted that the embassy reminded Chinese citizens in the United States to pay attention to security due to recent prominent social and security issues in some areas, and the frequency of knife and gun incidents.

Boutain has a criminal history that includes drug, car theft and weapons charges in Minnesota and Alabama dating back to his days a juvenile.

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He was paroled in May after serving a year and a half in an Alabama prison for being a convicted sex offender and failing to report his whereabouts to police.

“It just seemed like the most senseless thing to do, take the life of such a great person,” said Steve Comrie, a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation that included Guo.

Alabama court records showed Boutain and his wife Kathleen married in 2014 and had two children. He filed for divorce in January while imprisoned, but the split wasn’t finalised in court.

Boutain and his wife were wanted for questioning with the killing of a 63-year-old Golden, Colorado man whose truck is missing but which authorities said Boutain may have driven to Utah.

Police said Mitchell Bradford Ingle, whose body was found Tuesday in his trailer home, may have been friendly with the Boutains but it wasn’t clear how they met and how the older man was killed.

Kathleen Boutain was jailed in Utah on unrelated drug and theft charges after she reported to police Monday night that her husband had assaulted her while they were camping in the canyon.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown and University of Utah police did not have details Tuesday about how Boutain encountered Guo and later evaded hundreds of officers who swarmed the campus after the shooting.

A lockdown at the university, which has about 32,800 students, ended early Tuesday and school officials cancelled classes for the day. About 175 students had to shelter in the library Monday night because they couldn’t return to their homes.

Lori McDonald, the University of Utah’s dean of students, said Guo served as a peer adviser to help other international students find their bearings on campus and described him as “extremely outgoing, charming, creative, smart”.

“This senseless act of violence has shaken our community and ended the life of a dear son, true friend, and promising scholar,” University of Utah President David Pershing said.

Guo served as a missionary in Provo and volunteered as a foreign language interpreter for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and recently persuaded his parents to join the church, Comrie said.

His friend, 24-year-old Rachel Tam of Pleasant Grove, Utah, said Guo baptised her cousin into the faith and would speak in a moving and powerful way about his beliefs.

Tam said Guo also wowed his friends on the dance floor with hip hop moves.

The alleged killer’s mother, Roseanne Boutain, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that her family was “heartbroken for the victims and their families. We are sending out our heartfelt and earnest prayers.”

Additional reporting by Reuters