Baldwin man’s suicide follows arrest warrant

A Baldwin man locked himself in his bathroom, then shot and killed himself late Monday as sheriff’s deputies tried to serve him with an out-of-state arrest warrant for writing bogus checks, Sheriff Ken McGovern said Tuesday.

McGovern said deputies had made about 3,500 attempts to serve warrants so far this year, and that they almost always ended without incident.

“I can’t recall this ever happening,” he said.

He identified the man killed as Leonard Ray Collins, 40, of 315 Fourth St., who was wanted for five felony counts in Pottawatomie County, Okla.

McGovern said Monday’s shooting remained under investigation and that the two deputies who were in Collins’ home had been placed on paid administrative leave as a precaution. The department did not release the deputies’ names Monday.

According to the court clerk’s office in Pottawatomie County, Okla., Collins was wanted for using bogus checks on five occasions between July 7 and July 27 to buy $25,000 worth of merchandise from a steel company in Tecumseh, Okla.

Two Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies and a supervisor went to the home shortly after 11 p.m. to help the Baldwin Police Department serve the warrant on Collins. When they arrived, McGovern said, they saw a man outside the home and recognized him from a photo as Collins.

McGovern said Collins went into the home and deputies pursued. At the door, they met Collins’ wife and two children, who were removed from the home. Collins’ wife told officers there were no firearms in the home, McGovern said.

During a search of the home, two deputies encountered a locked bathroom door, McGovern said. They knocked on the door and a male voice inside said “Hold on a sec,” immediately before a single gunshot sounded, he said. The deputies eventually forced open the door and found Collins alone with what appeared to be a single gunshot wound to the head, according to the sheriff’s office.

They found a semiautomatic handgun in the room, McGovern said.

A neighbor, Naomi Mitchell, said the family had moved into the rental home about a month ago, and that her 10-year-old daughter had played with one of the couple’s daughters. She said it appeared that members of the Collins’ extended family often stayed with them.

“We were kind of glad to have a family in there living by us,” she said. “It seemed to be fine. : I know like a week ago one of my kids came home and said they were already moving back to Oklahoma.”

Mitchell said officers were on the scene until about 9:30 a.m., and that the family was gone and had moved out most of its belongings by about 10:30 a.m.

“They just packed up and left,” she said.