By Lisa Rogers
Times Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 3:39 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 8:26 p.m.
A DeKalb County volunteer firefighter accused of killing his wife and then covering up her death by setting their home on fire shot and killed himself this morning after a police chase in Jackson County.
Johnny Daniel Carden, 28, was facing a capital murder charge in his wife’s death.
Jennifer Carden, 24, was believed to have died in a house fire on Dec. 26, but an autopsy showed she was dead before the fire started, Ray Cumby, a deputy state fire marshal, said.
Johnny Daniel Carden was a volunteer with the Hammondville Fire Department.
A warrant for capital murder was obtained for Carden this morning. Authorities were looking for him when Jackson County sheriff’s deputies spotted his vehicle near the Tennessee River Bridge on Alabama Highway 35 in Scottsboro and tried to pull him over, Cumby said. Carden would not stop and when he reached the intersection of U.S. Highway 72 and Jackson County Road 113 in Hollywood, he pulled into the median and shot himself before deputies could reach his truck.
DeKalb County Sheriff Jimmy Harris at the time of Jennifer Carden’s death said her husband told investigators he went to the kitchen to get their young son something to drink and noticed smoke. He told investigators he called to his wife, but could not get to the bedroom she was in because the smoke was so thick. He said he got their son and they left through the back door of the house.
The 3-year-old boy was in the truck with his father when he shot himself, Cumby said.
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