I'm Emily Rowney, and I'm Alicia Holland.

This is Bill Camp, the voice of forensic files, too, on HLN, and you're listening to Murder in the Rain.

On December 31, 2011, there was a small New Year's Eve party held in Skyway, Washington, which borders South Seattle.

Among the nine or so attendees was Benjamin Colton Barnes, 24, who was there with two friends.

Over the course of a few hours and many drinks, the conversation among a few at the party turned to guns.

Nearing 3am, quote, a kind of show and tell with the guns, unquote, began, and one of the group asked to examine the gun of another man.

After checking the pistol out, he then refused to return it to its owner.

And a quick hot tip for our listeners, don't let people play with your guns, little pieces of metal can fly out of them at any moment, and they go pretty fast.

Or play with anyone's gun for that matter.

Voices were raised, the sparks of an argument.

Almost instantly, two party guests decided that negotiations had failed.

They pulled guns and began firing, hitting four party goers.

Benjamin Barnes was identified as one of the shooters, though it was not known who began firing first.

Barnes fled the scene and returned to his apartment.

There, he told the friends he'd driven home with that he was fleeing to California before saying his goodbyes loading multiple firearms into his car and taking off.

Later that same morning, now New Year's Day, Barnes made one strange, brief stop driving to the home of a romantic interest to wish her a happy New Year before leaving Seattle for the last time.

He left without incident, but when interviewed by police, the woman said Benjamin Barnes seemed unstable and volatile.

There were no fatalities from Barnes sudden mass shooting at the party that left four people injured, two of them critically.

Law enforcement were quick to discover the identity of Barnes, but would not be able to pinpoint his location until he reached his terminus at an elevation of 5,400 feet.

Barnes began by heading south, but instead of driving to California, he made the two and a half hour trek to a familiar place, one where he had gone camping and fishing earlier in life.

Mount Rainier National Park, which has a peak of 14,410 feet, is one of many bold images that spring to mind when the Northwest is referred to as Pacific Wonderland.

The park draws between one and a half to two million hikers, climbers, campers, and nature lovers yearly, and is the second most visited National Park in Washington and the fifth oldest in the nation.

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