Allen/Cutshall possible suspect killed

A man thought to be connected to the murders of two youth ministers with West Michigan ties was killed in a gunfight that also claimed a sheriff's deputy.

Joseph Henry Burgess, 62, died July 16 in a shootout with Sgt. Joseph Harris and Deputy Teresa Moriarty in a cabin in La Cueva, New Mexico. Harris was fatally wounded during the skirmish while Moriarty was not injured.

The two Sandoval County Sheriff's Department officers had staked out the cabin hoping to capture the mysterious burglar known for breaking into local cabins to get food, clothing and occasionally liquor. Police say the Jemez Mountain burglar known for years only as the Cookie Bandit was Burgess.

Burgess was identified through his fingerprints. They were in a national database from the 1972 murders of a young couple camping near Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada. Investigators said they found his prints on the belongings of Leif Carlsson and Ann Durrant.

Burgess has been described as a religious fanatic who often ended his phrases in, "Amen." Canadian investigators suspected he may have become outraged because Carlsson and Durrant were sharing a tent but weren't married.

His name also surfaced in the similar killings of Jason Allen of Zeeland, Mich. and Lindsay Cutshall of Ohio who were found shot to death while camping in California in August 2004. Police wondered if Burgess was the killer.

"There was enough similarities that caused our detectives to investigate," Cutshall's father, Chris Cutshall, told KRQE News 13 in a telephone interview.

The similarities were that both cases involved a young, unmarried couple who were camping when they were shot in the head.

The difference, Cutshall said, was that his daughter and her fiancé had been shot with a high-powered .45 caliber rifle while the couple in the 1972 case had been shot with a .22 rifle.

But now Cutshall's father may never know.

"It is a little frustrating," he said. "We would've loved to have talked to the man."

While Allen and Cutshall were killed in 2004, investigators out west believe Burgess lived in the Jemez Mountains for the last 10 years.

Until now, many who knew of Burgess thought he was hiding out in Canada or the Pacific Northwest.

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More information on Burgess is available on the America's Most Wanted Web site.

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KRQE reporter Maria Medina contributed to this report