FREDONIA - One of two specially trained New York state troopers ambushed while searching for an escaped convict who once promised to “splatter pig meat” all over, died Sunday of his injuries, state police said.

Joseph Longobardo was shot in the leg Thursday night while staking out the property of a former girlfriend of Ralph “Bucky” Phillips. He died Sunday at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo with his wife at his side, State Police Superintendent Wayne Bennett said at a news conference Sunday night.

The announcement came in the midst of one of the largest manhunts in New York history and as Longobardo's fellow troopers held a candlelight vigil for him and for Donald Baker Jr., the other trooper shot in the woods of Chautauqua County. Baker, who was shot in the back, remained in critical condition in a medically-induced coma, police said.

Longobardo, 32, had a leg amputated Saturday at a Buffalo hospital after suffering severe blood loss, police said.

Baker, 38, had his condition return to critical Sunday afternoon. That changed from the morning, when a spokesman for Hamot Medical Center in Erie, Pa., said his condition had been upgraded to serious. Baker was hit in the back by a bullet that penetrated his bullet-resistant vest.

The search continued for Phillips, Bennett said.

“You can run but you can't hide. Sooner or later, I don't care how good you are, we will find you,” Bennett said at the news conference.

After the news conference, more than 100 troopers participated in a ceremony outside state police barracks in Fredonia. They saluted as the American and state police flags were raised and then lowered to half staff in honor of Longobardo. Trooper Dan Brown sang a slow a cappella version of “Amazing Grace.”

Afterward, Bennett said, “Without any words even spoken, that sends a powerful message to the public about what has gone on here tonight.”

Trooper Mark O'Donnell said Longobardo's death did not change the way troopers viewed their mission to catch Phillips. “You can't be more determined,” O'Donnell said. “We were determined from the day he shot Sean Brown,” the trooper wounded in June.

At the vigil earlier Sunday, troopers vowed to track down Phillips.

“We are not going to put up with it,” police spokeswoman Rebecca Gibbons said after the vigil. “He's angered a family, and we're going to be out here until he is in custody.”

Hundreds of police, 140 a shift, continued to search rural western New York for Phillips, the prime suspect in Thursday's sniper-style shooting. Others gathered at the vigil in Hamburg, about 10 miles south of Buffalo.

State police warn Phillips, who has been on the run for five months, could hurt anyone who gets in his way.

The manhunt has reached a size not seen in New York since 1973, when hundreds of troopers scoured the Adirondacks region for murderer and serial rapist Robert Garrow. Also a veteran outdoorsman, he outran police in the wilderness for 11 days.

But Phillips, 44, has been on the run much longer. Saturday marked five months since he cut his way out of an Erie County jail with a can opener. Since then, he has been suspected in the non-fatal shooting of another trooper in June near Elmira in southern New York, and police said he has survived on the run by stealing about 15 vehicles and breaking into hunting camps and a gun shop.

Some residents here in his native Chautauqua County once took the hunt for Phillips playfully, offering “Bucky Burgers” and “Where's Bucky?” T-shirts for sale. With Thursday's shootings, that started to change.

Now, “I think even his buddies will turn (on) him,” resident Jackie Terrill told The Buffalo News. “We're not a bunch of idiots out here.”

Police hadn't been able to interview the injured troopers because of their conditions. One trooper managed to return fire Thursday, but police did not say whether the sniper, who fired from less than 100 yards away in the woods, was hit.

Authorities say his disdain for police was well known. Sheriff's officials said that when he was released or transferred from the Chautauqua County jail several years ago, he left officials a note threatening “to splatter pig meat all over Chautauqua County.”

State police were hoping a new $225,000 reward for help in Phillips' capture would inspire residents to come forward. Six local people have been arrested in recent days and charged with harboring Phillips, including his daughter and former girlfriend.

State police Saturday said Phillips is a threat, and not just to law enforcement.

“He's a desperate man, he knows he's wanted and his choices are running out,” Gibbons said. “If someone in the community comes between him and his freedom, it is our feeling that he will become desperate and possibly hurt them.”

Bennett said police are not looking for a shootout.

“That's not the way we want this to end,” he said.

But friends of Phillips have said a shootout is exactly what he wants.

They said Phillips was infuriated after police arrested his former girlfriend, Kasey Crowe, and his 23-year-old daughter, Patrina Wright, Aug. 24 and removed Wright's three children - the youngest 3 weeks old - from her custody for a week. The children were returned to Wright's custody Thursday.

“We are caught in the middle, though, and my kids were used to bring him out,” Wright said Saturday by phone.