Tragic Broken Arrow Fire That Left Eight Dead Being Investigated as Homicide
The city of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was in shock Thursday night after a massive house fire took the lives of eight people in what police are now calling a “tragic” homicide.
Officers and firefighters initially responded to a fire scene at the house on Thursday, but what they discovered was much more grim: the bodies of eight people.
Through conversations with witnesses police confirmed a family of eight, which include two adults and six children, did reside at the house, but authorities would not confirm if those were the same bodies found inside.
“Because of the complex fire obviously it’s going to take time for us to actually identify all the bodies so we don’t want to say who they are or were, but what we can say right now is that eight bodies were found and from our statements with witnesses it was two adults and six children who lived in the house,” Broken Arrow Police Department public information officer Ethan Hutchins said in a brief press conference Thursday night.
A press conference is scheduled for Friday morning, and authorities are expected to provide further information on the events that transpired, but Hutchins said the neighborhood is safe and that there is no immediate threat to the public.
Preliminary reports from officers and detectives on the scene confirmed that they are investigating the deaths as a homicide.
Probed if one of the deceased was responsible for the murders, Hutchins said police were still investigating and that “we want to focus right now on what we do know that we can release, we’re not at the point right now where we can release that.”
The medical examiner’s office was at the scene and “looking into the condition of the bodies,” Hutchins said, but warned “this is a complex scene, this fire was a large fire and there’s a lot of moving parts to this investigation, so until we have the medical examiner be able to actually figure this out, we don’t have that [information] for you just yet.”
He would not offer information on whether any firearms were found inside the house, only confirming that the house itself “did take some fire damage.” The cause of death of the eight people is also yet to be revealed.
“It’s a tragic scene where you’ve got a family of eight who lived here, our hearts go out to the Broken Arrow community because this is a very safe city, homicides don’t happen here normally. This is the first homicide incident in Broken Arrow this year, we just want to put the focus on healing and praying and being there for one another.”
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