EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) _ A man who said he preferred suicide over the consequences and guilt from sexually molesting a 15-year-old friend was found dead Friday, along with the friend.

Stephan Eastburn and the teen, Grant Hussey, were found in a parked car in a suburban wildlife preserve. Both were shot in the head with a rifle.

The 30-year-old Eastburn, a friend and neighbor of the Hussey family’s, had been free on $5,000 bail on a charge of criminal sexual conduct for allegedly assaulting Hussey during a deer-hunting trip earlier this month.

ADVERTISEMENT

A judge had ordered Eastburn to have no contact with the boy.

It was clear that Eastburn had abducted Hussey, said FBI agent Nick O’Hara. Police said a note was found, but wouldn’t divulge who wrote it or what it said.

Asked whether a note indicating a murder-suicide was found in the car, O’Hara said: ″Pretty close.″ He wouldn’t elaborate.

Discovery of the bodies by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer ended an intensive manhunt that began Monday night, when Hussey disappeared.

Hundreds of tips flowed into authorities and dozens of volunteers were enlisted in Eden Prairie, an affluent suburb of Minneapolis.

A preliminary autopsy report said the two likely died Monday night. A rifle was found with the bodies.

According to a criminal complaint, Eastburn admitted to Hussey’s parents that he molested the boy Nov. 6-7 during the weekend hunting trip. Eastburn admitted the abuse soon after the two returned.

Early on Nov. 10, Hussey’s parents saw Eastburn with a gun to his head in the garage of an aunt with whom he lived.

Eastburn told police he couldn’t understand why he would hurt someone he cared so deeply for and said he would rather kill himself than face what he had done.

Teen-agers who said they were friends of both young men said Eastburn attended high school parties and was known to local youngsters, many of whom he befriended.

Hussey was last seen midway through his Monday evening shift as a bagboy at a grocery store. Lucille Pierce, a cashier who worked with the ninth-grader, said he was gone when she returned from a break and a cart he had used to take a customer’s groceries to a car was left in the lot.

Police on Tuesday connected the boy’s disappearance with a missing car that a Hussey neighbor said she had loaned Eastburn on Monday night. The car had not been returned.

The complaint indicates that Eastburn didn’t force sex on the boy, although Hussey reportedly told Eastburn he had allowed some of the contact because he was scared.

Eastburn lived across the street from the Husseys with Susan Gallagher, the aunt. Eastburn’s sister and a priest read a statement at the Gallagher house.

″This has been an enormous tragedy that words cannot express,″ said the Rev. Tim Power. ″The Eastburn family shares the pain and loss we all feel.″