STANWOOD – A judge had ordered the arrest of Donald Mark Larson after he failed to appear in court in connection with a voyeurism charge alleging that he videotaped an elderly woman’s chest.

Larson, 69, was found dead inside his rural Stanwood home Thursday night after Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies attempted to arrest him.

“A shooting situation occurred between the officers and the man,” Everett police Sgt. Boyd Bryant said Friday.

The Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team is investigating the shooting because deputies were involved. Everett detectives are leading the investigation.

Multiple shots were fired, Bryant said, and Larson retreated into his house. Several hours later, deputies found him dead of gunshot wounds. As routine practice, three deputies were placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Police won’t say if deputies shot Larson. The county medical examiner’s office didn’t release a cause of death Friday.

Everett detectives recovered significant evidence Friday, Bryant said, but he would not specify whether investigators found a gun, adding that no other details will be available until the deputies are interviewed early next week.

Larson was charged in 2002 with voyeurism for allegedly operating a video camera under a disabled woman’s sweat shirt at a Stanwood nursing home. He was sentenced to two years in prison, an exceptionally long sentence, because the victim was particularly vulnerable, county Superior Court Judge Linda Krese said. The home was a residence for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Larson appealed, and in November 2003 the state Court of Appeals gave him a new trial, but turned down his request to dismiss the charge.

In February, a judge ordered Larson to appear at Western State Hospital in Steilacoom for an evaluation to determine if he was mentally competent to strand trial.

Superior Court Judge Richard Thorpe signed a $100,000 bench warrant March 4 for Larson’s arrest because he had failed to show up for his court date.

The voyeurism charge was dismissed Friday after a deputy prosecutor filed an affidavit explaining that Larson had “engaged in a gunfight with police while they were attempting to serve the warrant. When the shooting ended, the defendant was found shot dead.”

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.