| By Neil Johnson, Big Radio News Staff |

Dane County Sheriff’s officers say a man and a 13-year-old girl were shooting at police out of a vehicle during a chase that wound through rural, southern Dane County Wednesday night.

Dane County Sheriff Calvin Barrett says 39-year-old Dane County resident Alex C. Grunke is dead of suicide after police found him in the basement of a town of Albion farmhouse that he’d fled into after firing a gun in the house.

Police evacuated a family from inside the house during an hours-long standoff that rolled out after a police say they’d chased Grunke’s vehicle through multiple jurisdictions.

Police say Grunke was a person of interest in the double-murder of a woman and a child police say rolled out in Dubuque County, Iowa on Wednesday evening.

Police say they blew out Grunke’s vehicle tires with spikes in a chase that included Grunke and a 13-year-old female passenger who police haven’t yet identified. Both Grunke and the girl apparently were shooting at officers during the chase, using a handgun and a rifle.

No police were hurt, and police did not fire back, Barrett says.

Police say Grunke had barricaded himself in the basement of a house after police disabled his car and both he and the female ran off. This was along Ramsey Road, in an area off Highway 51, a mile west of the Coachman’s Golf resort.

Police say the female ran into some nearby woods, and Barrett says police located her later with a drone, although he says when they found her, she was “unresponsive,” and then died of causes Barrett says police could not immediately determine.

She had no obvious injuries, he says.

Police say Grunke shot a gun into the town of Albion house several times before he ran inside armed. After police ran in and evacuated a family inside, and after several hours of negotiations trying to get Grunke to come out of the home, police sent in a robot.

They found Grunke dead in the basement, apparently of suicide.

The chase involving Grunke and the girl happened after police responded to a report Grunke had dropped a very young child off at a house in Dunn County and left. That child now is under care of county authorities as the case remains under investigation.

Barrett deferred to the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office on any further explanation of who the deceased girl is, although he said in a statement at a press conference Thursday afternoon the female is “related, possibly” to Grunke.

Barrett said the area has lost “two community members” in the deaths of Grunke and the girl.

He describes the ongoing investigation as complex and involving multiple crime scenes. He says Dane County authorities will release more information on their portions of the investigation as they’re able.