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Utah man suspected of shooting two in California, killing one and gravely injuring a sheriff’s deputy

A Utah man is suspected of killing a man in Los Angeles and then shooting an off-duty sheriff's deputy in the head.

Rhett Nelson, 30, was arrested Tuesday in Long Beach, Calif., after he used a phone in a Long Beach church to call his father in St. George.

“He referred to committing murder in southern California,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Kent Wegener said at a news conference Tuesday. In fact, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, “He referenced that he killed two.”

At the time Nelson called his father, a manhunt was underway for a gunman who on Monday shot Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gilbert Solano, who was off-duty and visiting a Jack In The Box restaurant in Alhambra, Calif.