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Body found in burning car at Parkland apartment complex, sheriff's office investigating


Body found in burning car at Lakewood apartment complex, sheriff's office investigating (Pierce Co Sheriff's Department)
Body found in burning car at Lakewood apartment complex, sheriff's office investigating (Pierce Co Sheriff's Department)
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PARKLAND, Wash. - The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is investigating a car fire after a body was found inside the vehicle.

Around 4:15 a.m. Thursday, Central Pierce Fire crews responded to a car fire in an apartment parking lot in the 10400 block of Sales Road South in Parkland.

Several residents tried to put out the car fire while 911 was called.

Once firefighters extinguished the flames, they found a person deceased in the driver's seat.


The Pierce County Sheriff's Office says they're treating the incident as a potential arson and homicide but are leaving open the possibility that it was accidental. The cause of the fire is still unknown at this time.

"It could be an accident. The thing with it being an accident is how did the person not get out of the car is the question. So we have a lot of different possibilities. But we're going to work from the evidence that we collect from the medical examiners office," Sgt Darren Moss Jr said.

Moss says the medical examiner will be able to tell if there is any blunt force trauma, stab wounds or gun shot sounds that would obviously show that something else occurred.

At this point there are no know witnesses to what happened and detectives are still looking for any cameras on nearby businesses or apartments that may have captured an image of the car and driver.

Detectives do know that the car does not belong to anyone living in the apartments and the person inside is not the registered owner of the car.

"We're looking at several difference scenarios," Moss says. "It could be accidental. It could have been the person was killed and then the car was set on fire or the fire was the thing that killed him, either accidental or intentional."

Moss says they've ruled out the registered owner of the car as a suspect but they're still trying to figure out how the person ended up in the car.



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