DETROIT – A career-criminal-turned-informant who police say killed six people in a crime spree that ended with him shooting himself in the head has died.

Detroit police said Kenyel Brown died Friday, four days after officers chased him down in a backyark in suburban Oak Park, where Brown had hopped fences to elude officers before ultimately turning a gun on himself.

Officers heard a single gunshot, which ended their massive manhunt for Brown, whom police had linked to six deaths in six weeks. Police said the killings, which happened in January and February, were not random and involved drugs, money or both.

Brown also was wanted for two carjackings in Detroit, which occurred 19 minutes apart on Feb. 21. The next day, the crime spree ended with a sixth person killed.

Brown’s case has triggered controversy and finger-pointing as he allegedly carried out these crimes weeks after a federal judge released him back into society following a probation violation, rather than locking him back up.

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The same day U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman set Brown free and ended his supervised release Oct. 29 – a move that was requested by a federal law enforcement agency – the ex-convict was hired as an informant for a Detroit police and Drug Enforcement Administration task force.

Nine weeks later, police said, he claimed his first victim in River Rouge. Less than a month later, he killed two more people in River Route on the same day, police said.

At the time of the double-homicide on Feb. 2, Brown was still an informant for the Detroit police. The next day, after learning that Brown was tied to the two killings, police said they ended Brown’s job as an informant.

But the killings continued.

Two weeks after his informant job was terminated, police said, Brown was linked to three more killings: one in Highland Park and two in Detroit.

The first Detroit death happened Feb. 20.

The next day, Brown pulled off two carjackings in Detroit, within 19 minutes of each other, police said.

Twenty-four hours later, another death happened in Detroit. Police believe it was Brown’s sixth and final victim as they closed in on him two days later. On Monday, after a clerk at an adult bookstore on 8 Mile Road spotted Brown from news reports, officers chased him down in Oak Park, where Brown fired his final shot that ended his reign of terror.