Court documents detail fatal fire near Deer Park
Mar. 30—Court documents shed more light on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of a man's body last week in a Deer Park home.
The fire is under investigation, according to Mark Gregory, corporal and spokesman at the Spokane County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies responded to 36516 N. Echo Road, northeast of Deer Park, shortly after 7 p.m. March 21 after a woman who lives at the home reported it was on fire and a person inside was also on fire, according to search warrant documents.
A deputy found the home engulfed in flames and smoke. A paramedic told the deputy someone told him a "suspicious male" was on the property but had left.
Fire crews responded and located a body inside the home.
The woman who called 911 told the deputy she was lying in bed and started dozing off when she saw an "orange color" in the hallway.
She got up and went toward her friend's room and saw him kneeled over his nightstand. She said everything was on fire inside the bedroom.
She tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher but was unable to pull the pin from it, documents say. She also tried using water to extinguish the blaze but the flames had gotten too big.
The woman told the deputy her friend drank and smoked, but she did not know him to be suicidal or have enemies.
A fire investigator told a deputy the body was charred and unrecognizable.
Spokane County Fire District 4 Chief Russ Hamilton said last week the man, whose identity has not been released, was in his 50s.
