Mount Rainier National Park remains closed as murder investigation continues (NEW)

  • The Associated Press
  • Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:01pm
  • News

The Associated Press

SEATTLE — Employees at Mount Rainier National Park gathered Tuesday to grieve the loss of a park ranger who was fatally shot inside the park.

Park spokesman Greg Shine said park employees met to come together as a community and to begin the healing process following Sunday’s fatal shooting of Margaret Anderson.

Searchers found the body of the suspected gunman Monday.

Benjamin Colton Barnes was lying partially submerged in a frigid mountain creek with snow banks standing several feet high on each side.

The park remains closed while the investigation continues.

Shine said Tuesday it was still unknown when the park might reopen.

He said discussions would begin this week about memorial services for Anderson.

Relatives have said that Anderson, 34, was living her dream, working at the same park as her ranger husband and raising their two young daughters.

“They had been looking for that for a long time, to be in the same park,” Margaret Anderson’s father, the Rev. Paul Kritsch, told The Seattle Times soon after she was killed.

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