KEN RITTER, Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — With investigators still trying to answer the question why, officials on Tuesday identified a Las Vegas police lieutenant, his former police officer wife and their 5-year-old son as the three people found dead in a burned home after a double murder-suicide in Boulder City.
The gunshot deaths of Kathryn Michelle Walters and 5-year-old Maximilian Walters were homicides, Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy said in a statement, and the self-inflicted gunshot death of police Lt. Hans Pieter Walters was a suicide.
Henderson police were continuing to investigate what happened before and after a man called 911 at 8:20 a.m. Monday, said he killed his wife and child, set his house afire and would harm anyone who approached, Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said.
No new information was made public by investigators Tuesday. Detectives from Henderson were handling the case under an investigative agreement with neighboring Boulder City, 20 miles east of Las Vegas.
"Detectives are still trying to determine what led to this terrible tragedy," Paul said.
Boulder City police reported Monday they arrived to find Walters with a handgun in the doorway of the burning house before he retreated back inside and killed himself.
No shots were fired by police or SWAT officers from Henderson and North Las Vegas who were summoned as firefighters doused flames at the modest four-bedroom home in a quiet residential neighborhood not far from a school and the municipal hospital.
Kathryn Walters, 46, who went by the Michelle, was a Las Vegas patrol officer from January 1991 to August 2004.
Las Vegas police said Hans Walters, 52, was a Las Vegas police officer for 21 years, and was promoted to lieutenant three years ago. He was a patrol supervisor in an area southeast of the Las Vegas Strip.