Suspect who ambushed, shot two deputies is killed in Jefferson County manhunt

Police identified the suspect as Shawn Keith Nims, 40, of Cedar Hill in Jefferson County.

One of the deputies, Nina Osia, 22, was hit in the left calf and ankle and suffered a broken leg; the other deputy, Michael Toombs, 43, was hit in the left shoulder. Both were treated at a hospital and released.

“They are stable and in good spirits,” Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer said.

The manhunt ended at 8:20 a.m. Friday in the 7300 block of Cedar Drive, where police saw an open sliding door and went inside with a search dog team. When police spotted Nims, he dived out a front window, and officers in the front yard yelled for him to put down his weapon, Boyer said.

“He had the assault-style weapon in his hands, and he refused to put the gun down,” Boyer said. “The officers did exactly what they had to do.”

Nims died at the scene.

Cedar Drive is about a half-mile from a home in the 7400 block of Twin Ridge Drive where police say Nims shot two deputies about 2 a.m. Friday.

After being shot, the injured deputies fired shots at Nims but couldn’t be sure if he had been hit. There was a blood trail at the scene, “but we don’t know if some of the blood was his or the officers’,” Boyer said.

Police said Nims ran from the home after shooting the deputies. He carried what Boyer described as a military-style rifle similar to an AK-47. Police from three counties searched near Highways B and 30 in an unincorporated area of northwestern Jefferson County.

Osia had gone to the home on Twin Ridge Drive, in an area known as Cedar Hill Lakes, about 11 p.m. Thursday — not to arrest him on the warrant, but because police had gotten a 911 hangup call.

Osia talked to residents inside the home, and they told her it had been an accident. But she was suspicious, Boyer said.

“They acted kinda hinky,” Boyer said.

The deputy knew that police had a warrant for Nims, who lived there. He was facing a Lincoln County charge for tampering with a motor vehicle, authorities said.

Osia noticed that a back bedroom window was open “like someone had crawled out,” the sheriff said.

Boyer said it was not uncommon for someone wanted by police in Jefferson County to flee into the woods and come back out later once he or she got hungry. So the deputy decided to leave and come back later.

Osia returned about 2 a.m. with Toombs. The people at the home allowed the deputies to come inside and look around. They told the deputies that Nims wasn’t there.

“They started to go downstairs and were told nobody was downstairs,” Boyer said. Osia went down first, and someone downstairs started firing. Boyer called it an ambush.

“They ended up in a gun battle in the basement,” Boyer said.

After shooting Osia and Toombs, Nims ran up the stairs and out of the home, Boyer said. Police found a shotgun on a bed, and the deputies saw him run away with a rifle.

Officers helping in the search were from Franklin, St. Louis and Jefferson counties. Authorities warned residents not to approach Nims if they saw him but to call 911.

In 2005, Nims was sentenced to three years in a Missouri prison for meth possession. He has a previous conviction for stealing in St. Louis County.

His Facebook page shows photos of him holding a baby girl and later digging in the sand with a young child, but his page also includes more menacing pictures such as Nazi symbols and his cover photo depicting the Last Supper where the devil is eating a human.

“He was a good guy to us, but he kind of had it out for the law,” said Nims’ across-the-street neighbor Joshua Rodgers, 26, on Friday afternoon.

Rodgers said that he thought of Nims as a big brother, and that he’d been doing well after leaving the area and working construction for a while.

Rodgers said he felt sorry for Nims’ mother, whose husband died a few months ago and who now lost her son.

He also said he wasn’t scared while Nims was on the loose.

“He would never have hurt us,” Rodgers said. “But at the same time, I didn’t think he would shoot two cops.”

Leah Thorsen of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.