Bullet Hit Woman Who Died in School Siege

The woman who died with her husband as they held an elementary school hostage with a gasoline bomb last week was not killed by the bomb’s accidental blast but by a bullet to the head, authorities said Friday.

Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department investigator Earl Carroll stopped short of saying Doris Young was deliberately shot in the head but did say her death was being treated as a homicide.

Bomb experts who examined the scene and two remaining bombs that Doris Young and her husband, David, carried into Cokeville Elementary School said they did not think the device’s blast was powerful enough to inflict the damage to her body that was sustained.

Authorities initially said Doris Young died when the homemade bomb was detonated accidentally. Young, who masterminded the plot to obtain a $300-million ransom for the students, teachers and administrators, then committed suicide.

Carroll said after two .44-caliber bullets were pried from the ceiling of the classroom where the Youngs held the hostages, investigators returned to the premise that Young might have shot his wife.

Although investigators would not say that Doris Young was shot deliberately, they do believe she was hit with a .44-caliber bullet.