By Scott Sonner Associated Press
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
RENO — A man who died in a gun battle with officers after he shot a state transportation worker on a remote Nevada highway last week has been identified as a 34-year-old from Northern California who may have ties to a homicide there, authorities say.
Zachary Minissale of Nevada City, California, was shot June 16 after fleeing the scene of the shooting of the Nevada Department of Transportation worker on State Route 278 in Eureka County, Nevada Highway Patrol Lt. Eddie Bowers said Monday. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The transportation worker recovered from non-life-threatening injuries and has been released from the hospital, he said.
Bowers said Minissale would have faced multiple charges including attempted murder with a deadly weapon after he opened fire on a road paving crew member in a construction zone south of the mining town of Carlin at about 10 a.m.
He made it about 42 miles south before the white 2017 Dodge cargo van he was driving was disabled by a spike strip and left the highway. He exited the van and began firing at a trooper and Eureka County undersheriff chasing him.
Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Candee, 28, who was armed with an AR15, and Undersheriff Tyler Thomas, 30, who was armed with a 9 mm pistol, fired a total of 16 shots, Bowers said.
Minissale had a .45 caliber revolver. He died of a single gunshot wound, Bowers said. No officers were hurt.
Bowers said an investigation determined Minissale "may have ties to an ongoing homicide investigation" in Nevada City.
The Nevada County sheriff's office said deputies found a 30-year-old British citizen, Jessic Clayton Robiere, dead in a home on Bodie Ridge Road in Nevada City on the same day the shootout occurred, June 16.
Minissale owned the home, and authorities believe he also had lived there, Sheriff's Lt. Sean Scales told The Union.
Scales declined to classify him as a suspect in Robiere's death but said Minissale had "obvious ties to the case we are looking at."
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