OMI: 'Cookie Bandit' shot in head

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator on Wednesday said "Cookie Bandit" Joseph Burgess died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Burgess got into a shootout last Thursday with two Sandoval County sheriff's deputies as they staked him out at a Jemez Springs-area cabin. One deputy, Sgt. Joseph Harris, was killed.

He had been on the county's Most Wanted list for repeatedly breaking into cabins and homes. Police had given him the Cookie Bandit pseudonym because he had often stolen food and they had not known his name.

After the shooting, police discovered Burgess was the prime suspect in a 1972 double murder on Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said two campers were shot in the head as they slept. Burgess had allegedly shot them because they weren't married but were sleeping together.

Investigators are still piecing together what happened in the cabin. Harris' partner, Deputy Theresa Moriarty, hasn't yet spoken with investigators about the shootout.