Hays ? Two people who were killed in a shootout as they fled from officers on Interstate 70 Wednesday afternoon were wanted for questioning in the shooting death of a decorated World War II veteran in Utah on Jan. 14, authorities said.

The names of the suspects, one male and one female, were not immediately released.

The chase started around 2 p.m. after Kansas Highway Patrol troopers attempted to stop the eastbound car with Colorado registration on Interstate 70. It ended when the car collided with a concrete bridge support about two miles east of Hays, Ellis County Atty. Tom Drees said in a news release.

As officers from the Highway Patrol and the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office approached the car, one of the suspects fired on them. The officers returned fire, killing both of the suspects, the release said.

Two Utah detectives traveled to Kansas on Wednesday to see whether there was a link between the two people and the Jan. 14 shooting death of Steven Poulos, 80, of Holladay, Utah.

The detectives, from Salt Lake County, already were in Colorado on Wednesday trying to locate the pair, said Sgt. Paul S. Jaroscak of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Utah authorities became interested in interviewing the two when one of their cell phone numbers turned up during the investigation of Poulos’ death.

Poulos was found shot in the back in the basement of his home. He was among the Allied troops that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He narrowly escaped death on June 1944, when he was shot by a German machine-gunner.

His family and friends were offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of his killer.

When Utah police tried contacting numbers in Poulos’ phone records, they reached a woman in Denver. Her answers didn’t fit with their information, so they sent two detectives to interview her. She wasn’t located in Denver, but additional phone records showed she was moving east, toward Kansas, Jaroscak said.

Kansas authorities were given the description of her car and a man she was traveling with, and were asked to stop them, Jaroscak said. A felony warrant was issued for the woman Wednesday for investigation of obstruction of justice.