Air Force Continues Probe of Base Slayings

Air Force officials released no information Sunday on the airman who they suspect killed a fellow flier and a military policeman before committing suicide in his dormitory early Saturday, saying the case remained under investigation.

Airman 1st Class Les Waters, a spokesman at Edwards Air Force Base, said only the suspect’s name had been released to the public: Senior Airman Devaughn L. Brown, 23.

Waters said the man’s service history would not be available for days and that investigators were trying to piece together Brown’s motives for killing fellow airman Darrick Moore, 27, and Tech. Sgt. Robert B. Butler, 34, a military police officer.

“[Investigators] have what they want. They’ve got the suspect and we found the two that were killed. It will take a while before the other information is released,” Waters said.

Moore’s wife told The Times that the shooting began after a grudge between Brown and her husband was renewed at a base sports bar late Friday.

She said her husband and Brown met while working in the same unit at the base. Tension grew between them when her husband dissuaded a woman from dating Brown.

The two men stepped outside the Stripes bar Friday to work out their differences, Adriana Moore said. She was at the bar but said she lost track of her husband.

At about 2 a.m., officials said Butler stopped a man, believed to be Brown, in Moore’s pickup truck on suspicion of drunk driving and radioed for backup. Responding officers found Butler shot to death next to his patrol car.

A blue pickup truck was driving away from the scene so officers followed the truck. The driver jumped out and ran into a dormitory. Brown was found dead in the dormitory recreation room of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

Later, officials followed the truck’s tire tracks to a base landfill and found Moore’s body.

Saturday’s incident was the first multiple slaying in the base’s history.