Woman Killed After Chase Is Identified : Drama: The wife of an MTA police officer was shot in front of TV news cameras by a deputy who felt she was a threat.

The woman who was shown on several TV news programs being shot to death by sheriff’s deputies on a Kern County road was identified by deputies Thursday as a Granada Hills resident who had threatened to kill herself in February.

Suzannah Casas Cody, 25, wife of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officer, was killed Wednesday on California 119, a two-lane highway in Bakersfield, because she pointed a pistol at deputies who had surrounded her van after a high-speed chase, said Kern County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Don Youngblood.

The shooting was captured by television news crews that had gathered there during an hourlong standoff between six deputies and Cody, who had refused to come out of the van.

Youngblood said he believed Cody may have wanted deputies to kill her.

“Anyone who will get out of a van with six officers surrounding them with guns drawn, and doesn’t put down their weapon, has to have some idea that it’s not a wise situation,” he said.

In February, Cody left a suicide note for her husband, William Cody, barricaded herself in the bathroom of her home in the 15900 block of Blackhawk Street for four hours and threatened to kill herself, police said.

Neighbors were evacuated while the LAPD’s crisis-response team was brought in to negotiate with the distraught woman. When police opened the bathroom door to talk to Cody, she pointed a gun at them and told them to get out and leave her alone to die, police said.

Cody was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

A neighbor said Cody, who had three daughters from a previous marriage, was having custody problems with her ex-husband.

“Her husband, William, told me that she was having trouble with her former husband about the girls,” said Jim Dangona, who lived next door to the Codys.

Dangona said William Cody bought the single-story house about a year ago. He married Suzannah Cody months later, and she and her daughters, 6, 4 and 3 moved in, Dangona said.

Suzannah Cody was quiet and did not socialize with many of her neighbors, but she did not seem to have any apparent problems until the February incident, Dangona said.

After that, Dangona said, William Cody voiced his concern about his wife’s potential to harm herself.

“After they had the standoff thing he was upset about it,” Dangona said. “He felt he had to protect her from hurting herself.”

On Wednesday, Suzannah Cody, an independent insurance contractor who worked in Sherman Oaks, left for her office but never arrived, sheriff’s deputies said.

Youngblood said Kern County deputies initially tried to pull over Cody’s black Ford minivan around 10 a.m. for speeding at 90 m.p.h. on California 99 near Bakersfield. Instead, the woman led deputies on a 15-minute chase that ended on California 119. After stopping in the eastbound lane, Cody remained in her van for an hour, refusing to talk to deputies, while news helicopters circled overhead and news vans followed the scene from the freeway, Youngblood said.

“If we can get a conversation going, we’re almost always successful,” Youngblood said. “She did not let us build a rapport with her whatsoever.”

When Cody did emerge from the van, she was holding a .380 semiautomatic pistol, which she refused to drop. After several minutes, she pointed it at the officers, prompting one of them to shoot her once in the chest, killing her, Youngblood said.

There was only one cartridge in the pistol, deputies said.

William Cody, a five-year MTA officer who works on the Red and Blue Metro Rail lines, could not be reached for comment. His commanding officer, Lt. Jack Herman, described him as shocked.

Suzannah Cody’s daughters, who were at home at the time, were taken to their grandparents’ home in Fillmore, Dangona said.

Funeral services for Cody will be held at 10:45 a.m. Saturday at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura.