A person inside a car with a license plate allegedly connected to the shooting deaths of a family of four in their Illinois home last weekend died Wednesday after trying to elude police in Oklahoma, officials said.
The male, whom authorities haven't positively identified, crashed the vehicle while police in the Oklahoma city of Catoosa pursued it, and the vehicle caught fire, authorities said. The male was found dead in the driver's seat with a gunshot wound, according to Chris Burne, deputy chief of police in Romeoville, Illinois.
A female passenger in the vehicle also had a gunshot wound, and she was listed in critical condition Wednesday, Burne said; the passenger's name was not released.
The vehicle's license plate, Burne said, is connected to a suspect in the weekend killings of two adults, their two children and their three dogs in Romeoville, some 30 miles southwest of Chicago.
The slain family members - Alberto Rolon, 38; Zoraida Bartolomei, 32; and their two boys, ages 7 and 9 - were found with gunshot wounds in their home Sunday night after a relative reported one of them didn't show for work, authorities said.
Hours after discovering their bodies, police identified Nathaniel Huey Jr. as a suspect in the case and an unnamed female as a "person of interest," Burne said at a news conference Wednesday.
Evidence revealed a connection between the suspect and the victims, as well as a "possible motive," Burne said, without elaborating.
The female person of interest was reported missing and endangered by family members on Tuesday evening. She was then entered into the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System, a police communications and information network, Romeoville police said.
Later that night, Romeoville police released a statewide bulletin to law enforcement agencies that said Huey was a "credible suspect in the investigation," Burne said.
On Wednesday morning, police in Catoosa, Oklahoma - roughly a 650-mile drive southwest of Romeoville - received a license plate reader alert notifying them that Huey's vehicle in their jurisdiction, according to Romeoville police.
Catoosa police found the vehicle and "attempted to conduct a traffic stop," but the driver tried to flee, and the vehicle crashed and caught fire, Burne said.
Officers on the scene then heard "two noises believed to be gunshots," Burne said.
The investigation is active and evolving, Burne said.
CNN's Brad Parks contributed to this report.
