(UPDATED 10:50 p.m.) Distraught over his pending divorce, a York Township man shot and killed his wife late Friday or early Saturday before turning the gun on himself, Sandusky County Sheriff's deputies said.
Gloria Sears, 46, was murdered by her husband Ernest Sears, 75, inside their ranch home at 6624 County Road 191, just west of Bellevue.
The murder-suicide was discovered at about 2 a.m. Saturday by Jonathan Hicks, Gloria's 21-year-old son who also lives in the home, Sandusky County Sheriff's Capt. James Consolo said.
Hicks, Ernest's stepson, told deputies he arrived home at about 1:40 a.m. and found the two bodies in the bathroom.
He called 911 just after 2 a.m.
Emergency dispatchers initially sent ambulances to the scene, but canceled them within minutes after police arrived.
Bellevue police were first on scene, followed closely by Sandusky County Sheriff's deputies, who used crime-scene tape to quickly cordon off the entire yard around the brick home.
Deputies then parked their cruisers across the two-lane road, blocking traffic from the east and west.
Consolo said he and the other deputies first questioned Hicks about what happened, and it soon became apparent it was a murder-suicide.
Hicks and other family members told investigators Gloria was in the process of filing for divorce and she recently told Ernest of her plans.
Gloria and her son had also arranged to move into a home across town within the next week.
Gloria's birthday was Friday.
Deputies suspected the murder- suicide happened between 9:30 p.m. Friday and 1:40 a.m. Saturday.
At about 3:30 a.m., four relatives or friends of the victims arrived and parked their cars on the roadside.
They got out and immediately began to hug each other in the early-morning darkness. The sound of their grieving traveled down the road, where a few alert neighbors heard the commotion.
At about 4 a.m., an investigator from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation showed up in a large white truck.
While the investigator grabbed his equipment and went inside the home to process evidence, deputies set to interviewing relatives.
Neighbors who happened to wake up early Saturday poked their heads out their doors, but they had no idea what was going on.
Adelia Munshower, 88, who lives in the home next to the Sears' house, said she woke up at about 4 a.m. to use the bathroom when she noticed all the commotion.
"And there they were," she said. "I saw all those flashers from the police cars."
Munshowser has lived in her home since 1954. She never talked to the man or woman next door, but she said they moved in no more than a year ago.
Even as the sun broke the horizon Saturday morning, deputies still weren't offering worried neighbors any explanations.
By 7:30 a.m. residents began to appear in numbers, wearing slippers and bathrobes with coffee mugs in hand.
They talked casually as they stared at the scene, but most of them agreed on this: The Sears family was a mystery.
Few knew anything about Ernest and Gloria Sears.
Some neighbors said they moved in about a year ago, others said two years ago.
“It's pretty quiet around here most of the time,” said Nicholas Martin, who has lived in the neighborhood for six years. “I just got off work and saw the lights flashing. I thought, ‘That’s just down the road from my house.' I didn’t know it was that close.”
The Searses mostly kept to themselves and didn’t talk to anyone, Martin said. “I said 'Hi' to the man a couple times while he was out there mowing the lawn, but that’s about it,” he said.
For residents and deputies, the tragedy reminded them of a similar murder-suicide in a house across a cornfield last year.
“It happened just over there in a brick house,” Martin said, pointing over the the browning cornstalks behind the Sears' home. “Guy shot his wife and then himself — I don’t know what it was all about.”
Sandusky County coroner John Wukie refused to specify details about Gloria and Ernest's fatal wounds, including the number of shots fired or the location of the gunshot wounds.
Consolo said there were no signs indicating Gloria put up a struggle before she was murdered.
The bodies will be sent to the Lucas County coroner's office for autopsies.
No comments:
Post a Comment