UPDATE: Wednesday – 10/1/2014, 11:43am
WASHINGTON – Montgomery County police say two suspicious deaths under investigation in Potomac are related and are being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Autopsies of the man and woman are planned to determine the causes and manners of deaths. Police hope to release their names Wednesday afternoon.
Police found the victims after responding to a garage fire on Great Elm and a crash at Piney Meetinghouse and River roads.
Police also say that the deaths stem from problems in the workplace. The man who owns the home on Great Elm and the man who was found at the crash scene worked together.
Police believe that the woman found dead inside the home also lived there and is the wife of the homeowner.
EARLIER: Wednesday – 10/1/2014, 8:59am
WASHINGTON — The investigation continues into two unusual incidents in Potomac that happened around the same time and place.
At about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters responded to an alarm for a house fire on Great Elm Drive in Potomac.
They found a small fire in the garage, as well as a dead person in the garage.
Not long afterward, police responded to a single-car crash at Piney Meetinghouse and River roads involving a lone male driver believed to be in his 40s. The Mercedes had left the road and crashed into a tree, and the driver was dead.
“Right now, detectives are unable to confirm that (the events) are related. But that is one of the things that they’re looking at, because it’s close in time and space that these two deaths occurred,” says Capt. Paul Starks, of the Montgomery County police.
“We’re in the process of talking with neighbors, of course family members, friends and other folks who may have some information.”
Starks confirmed there had been a report of vandalism at the house earlier in the day. The air had been let out of a tire on a car in the home’s driveway.
“That is another issue that they’re looking at — to see how that might be related, if at all, to the fire and the death at the home,” Starks says.
Asked if a report that the man found dead in the car may have died of a gunshot wound, Starks said, “Many times investigators are hesitant to jump to any kind of conclusion. They want the medical examiner to come out and make an assessment, and then also sometimes we wait until there’s an autopsy that’s been completed.”
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