Lee County Deputy Shot Serving Warrant-Suspect is Dead
By Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
April 17, 2026
LEE COUNTY, Ala. An Alabama deputy sheriff has been injured and a rape suspect killed after a woman notified law enforcement that had been held captive.
Sheriff Jay Jones said the investigation began when a school resource officer at a Loachapoka school was notified by a female that she had been victimized over the past several days by someone she identified as her boyfriend.
“She said that she had been held against her will and sexually assaulted multiple times,” Jones said.
The female victim, Jones said, had children at the school and seen the deputy at the school.
Lee County County Coroner Daniel Sexton on Thursday identified the slain man as Wilder Cobon Gomez. He was a 36-year-old Guatemalan national, Sexton said.
An investigation was immediately launched, and enough probable cause was established to obtain a first-degree rape warrant against Gomez.
Law enforcement proceeded to a mobile home community in the 900 block of Lee Road 188 in the Loachapoka community.
Jones said that deputies made entry and identified themselves and they were immediately met by the suspect who began shooting at the deputies and they returned fire killing Gomez.
A 3-year-old child in the home at the time the gunfire erupted was not injured.
At that point, the sheriff said, ALEA’s State Bureau of Investigation was brought in to lead the probe, which is standard procedure for many officer-involved shootings.
One of the deputies was struck in the arm and transported to an area hospital.
The deputy taken to the East Alabama Medical Center free-standing emergency room in Auburn with a gunshot wound to the arm.
He was then airlifted to UAB Hospital in Birmingham to be treated by a specialist.
“He was responsive and in stable condition,” the sheriff said.
The female victim was not at the home when the shooting happened.
Jones said the sheriff’s department received assistance from other law enforcement agencies, including the Auburn Police Department, and said multiple public officials offered support, including Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and Auburn Mayor Ron Anders.
“I would ask the community to please keep our deputy in their prayers, and his wife and family” the sheriff said. “I know they would deeply appreciate the prayers. We certainly do.”
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