Shootout: Colo. killing figure brain dead

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DENVER, March 21 (UPI) -- A man on life support after a shootout in Texas may be the suspect sought in the slaying of Colorado Department of Corrections head Tom Clements, police said.

The man, whose name has not been reported, led police on a chase Thursday before his vehicle was involved in a collision with a tractor-trailer, Wise County (Texas) Sheriff David Walker said Thursday. He was shot during an exchange of gunfire in Decatur, Texas, after the crash.

"He didn't plan on being taken alive," Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins said. "He was trying to hurt somebody."

The man, who is considered brain dead, was driving a black, four-door Cadillac with Colorado license plates, The Denver Post reported. Colorado police had said Wednesday they were looking for a Cadillac or Lincoln in the shooting death of Clements Tuesday night at his home in Monument, Colo.

The man, who carried no identification, was described as white and in his 30s. Investigators were using fingerprints to try to determine his identity, the newspaper said.

Colorado law enforcement officials are looking into whether the man may have killed 27-year-old pizza delivery driver Nathan Collin Leon in Denver Sunday, the Post reported.

Clements, 58, was killed when he opened the front door at his home. In audio of a 911 emergency, Clements' wife Lisa can be heard telling a dispatcher the gunman shot her husband in the chest.

"There is no evidence of a home invasion," El Paso County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said. "Whether he was specifically targeted or this was random, we don't know."

Homaidan al-Turki, a Colorado prison inmate, was moved to an isolation cell after Clements was killed.

Alison Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections, said al-Turki was not being punished, but was moved for his own protection. She said his relocation was not specifically related to the Clements investigation, the Post reported.

Al-Turki, a Saudi national, became a high-profile inmate after his 2006 conviction for enslaving a housekeeper in his home for four years and sexually assaulting her. He was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison.

A judge later reduced his sentence to eight years.

His conviction angered Saudi officials and prompted the U.S. State Department to send the Colorado attorney general to meet with the Saudi royal family and al-Turki's family.

A week before his death, Clements had denied al-Turki's request to serve the remainder of his sentence in Saudi Arabia, saying the inmate had refused to undergo sex-offender treatment.