A suspected poacher shot and killed three policemen and an ambulance driver in Austria Tuesday, then barricaded himself in his farmhouse -- where a charred body believed to be his was later found by officers, police said.
Some 100 armed cops had surrounded the farmhouse.
The suspect, 55, set fire to the building where he barricaded himself, but police earlier assumed he was still alive, Interior Minister spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said.
Police did not identify the suspect.
Armed special forces officers accompanied by an armored vehicle surrounded the farm in the village of Melk, 40 miles from the Austrian capital Vienna.
Officers found the body of one of the policemen -- who had been taken hostage -- in a nearby building, Grundboeck said. The gunman had already shot two police officers and an ambulance driver.
On Monday night, officials stopped the suspect in a forested area near the Alpine ski resort of Annaberg because he was suspected of poaching for some years, Grundboeck said.
Upon being pulled over, the man “immediately” opened fire on the two police officers, killing one of them, Grundboeck said. The shooter waited in the area until an ambulance driver arrived before opening fire again, killing the medic.
The suspect then fled the scene and was apprehended by another police team in the area, at which point he shot and killed a second officer, Grundboeck said.
The suspect then fled by car to his farmhouse in Melk, where he barricaded himself inside. Grundboeck said the body of the officer who had been taken hostage was found nearby, and police did not believe anyone else was in the building.
After an hours-long standoff, police entered the house and found a charred body in a basement hideaway, Austrian media quoted a police spokesman as saying.
NBC News' Becky Bratu and Reuters contributed to this report.