A man has been taken into custody on suspicion of arson just a day after another man was found dead inside a shed on a property in Spanaway, Washington, authorities told FOX 13 Seattle. Officials with the Sheriff's Office and Central Pierce Fire and Rescue said the arrest followed a fire on the same property, drawing investigators back to an address that had already become the scene of a death inquiry only hours earlier.
According to fire officials, crews were called to the home at around three in the afternoon on Tuesday. When they arrived, the fire was already fully ablaze, and firefighters had to work to bring the flames under control before they could fully knock the blaze down. What might otherwise have been treated as a routine structure fire quickly took on added weight because of what had unfolded on the very same property the day before.
Central Pierce Fire and Rescue said that two people lived at the property and that neither of them was hurt in the fire. Despite the intensity of the flames when crews first reached the scene, both residents were accounted for and unharmed. The focus then shifted from the fire itself to the question of how it had started and whether it had been set deliberately.
By the evening, the Sheriff's Office confirmed that one of the two people who lived at the home, a man, was now in custody in connection with the fire and was being held on suspicion of arson. That development turned the day's second emergency call at the address into a criminal matter, adding an arrest to a property that was already under active investigation.
The fire came less than twenty-four hours after the grisly discovery on the same property, when a man in his 60s was found dead with two gunshot wounds to the head on Monday afternoon in a shed at the address. Authorities said the cause of the fire had not yet been released, and no further details about that earlier death investigation were being made public as detectives continued their work.
Investigators with the Sheriff's Office said they are now trying to determine whether the two scenes at the property are connected, whether the two men knew each other, and what led up to both incidents. With an arson arrest on one hand and an unresolved death on the other, deputies were working to establish how the two events might fit together, and FOX 13 said it would continue to follow the case and provide updates as more information is confirmed.
