By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
ARCADIA, Kan. — The death of a 29-year-old man inside a burning home Sunday morning has been determined to be a suicide by gunshot, Crawford County authorities said Tuesday.
The Crawford County Sheriff’s Department said preliminary results of an autopsy performed by a state medical examiner in Topeka on the body of Justin Schmitz, of Arcadia, were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Crawford County deputies were called at 3:09 a.m. Sunday to Schmitz’s home at 500 E. Williams St. in reference to a domestic dispute. Deputies were setting up a perimeter around the home when they noticed smoke coming from the home, and firefighters were called to the scene.
Once the fire was extinguished and firefighters and deputies were able to enter the house, they discovered Schmitz dead, authorities said.
The man’s wife, Amber Schmitz, 31, had placed the call reporting the domestic disturbance and then called her mother to pick her up. She told authorities that as they were leaving, her husband shot at their vehicle with a rifle, striking it three times. Neither Amber Schmitz nor her mother was injured.
Sheriff Sandy Horton said he was confident that Justin Schmitz set the fire before shooting himself, although the death remains under investigation. Horton said the investigation has revealed that Schmitz doused the floor of the home with gasoline and threatened to burn it down before his wife left.
The sheriff said Justin Schmitz is believed to have started the fire and turned the gun on himself after his wife and her mother fled in the mother’s vehicle.
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