Slain Deputy's Parents Find Message, Break Down

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - The parents of an Ohio sheriff's deputy said that after learning she'd been shot to death they found a cheery recorded phone message from their daughter.

The message wishing her mother a happy New Year was left by Clark County Deputy Suzanne Hopper around 10:30 Saturday morning, about an hour before she was killed. The suspected gunman at a campground also died in the shooting, and a second officer was wounded.

Hopper's father, Charles Bauer, tells the Springfield News-Sun he and his wife, Bonnie, broke down when they heard their daughter's voice.

Hopper was the first Clark County officer killed on duty since 1978, the Springfield Sun-News reported. The 11-year deputy's record includes commendations and perfect attendance for a six-year stretch, Sheriff Gene Kelly said.

The 40-year-old mother of two teenage children had married recently and organized charity events during her time on the force.

Hopper's family members said they're relying on religious faith during their sorrow and said she loved police work.

"It's evident that she did more for people because she loved people, and I think that was why she picked the career she picked. She thought she could help people," her father, Charles Bauer, told WHIO-TV of Dayton Monday.

Visitation for the deputy is scheduled for Thursday afternoon and evening at First Christian Church in Springfield. The funeral will be held at the church on Friday.

The suspect in the fatal shooting, Michael Ferryman, 57, was committed to a mental facility after a 2001 standoff at a camping area in another part of the state, a sheriff said Monday.

In the earlier standoff with deputies in Morgan County, about 100 miles east of Springfield, Ferryman fired several times at officers, Morgan County Sheriff Tom Jenkins said in a news release Monday. The officers had responded to complaints that Ferryman shot at other campers taking firewood from a community pile, Jenkins said.

No one was hurt in the 26-hour standoff. Ferryman was charged with felonious assault on police officers with a firearm specification, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2003 and was committed to a mental facility.

He was granted a conditional release in 2005 from a southeastern Ohio mental facility and evaluated in 2008 by another facility in western Ohio, where he was living at the time, to help determine whether he remained mentally ill and whether conditional release still was appropriate, said Andrew Reisner, executive director of a forensic diagnostic center in Byesville. The center has been monitoring the case.