Posted on 04/24/2009 6:45:52 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
San Antonio police suspect three people, who were found dead inside their home Thursday afternoon, might have been killed from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Detective Raymond Roberts said a Hummer parked inside the garage was allowed to run until its fuel tank became empty. The Hummer's keys were still in the ignition when investigators arrived.
Roberts said carbon monoxide poisoning could have been the cause of death because no signs of trauma were found on the bodies. It was immediately unknown if the door to the garage was left open or how the poisonous gas was able to permeate into the living quarters of the house.
Neighbors said a father, his son and his daughter-in-law would occupy the house every once in a while and believe the two-story brick house in the 14000 block of Turret Run was used as a second home from the family, who was from Torreon, Coahuila, in Mexico.
Police Chief William McManus said a hazardous materials crew was called to the house, located inside a gated subdivision near Loop 1604 and U.S. 281, to check for any poisonous gas or airborne contaminants that might have led to the family's deaths.
“I think the whole situation is unusual because no force appears to have been used,” McManus said.
Police were called to the two-story, brick house at about 2:45 p.m. Thursday after friends detected a foul smell emanating from a window, which they broke in an attempt to get inside. After detecting the odor, the friends asked a neighbor to call police and firefighters were then alerted.
A Haz-Mat crew was at the scene and preparing to go inside the house to remove the bodies.
McManus said two of the bodies were found partially clothed in an upstairs bathroom, while the third was in a bedroom, also located upstairs. Police later said the father appeared to have been sleeping in the bedroom, while the son was in the bathroom taking a shower. The son's wife was found lying on the floor of the same bathroom.
Authorities were not releasing the names of the deceased, but friends of the homeowners said the house belonged to the Medrano family. The friends said relatives in Mexico City hadn't heard from them since at least Sunday and had asked them to check on their wellbeing.
The friends, who declined to be identified, said they went by the house Wednesday, but no answered the door when they knocked. The friends said they left a note on the door and returned Thursday after being told of the dead bodies inside.
Neighbor Karen Eckols, 37, said she was surprised to learn of the deaths because she hasn't seen or heard anything suspicious in the neighborhood.
“I walk my dog down the street everyday and I never heard anything,” Eckols said.
Joe Galloway, vice president of the Regency Park Homeowners Association, said the home was purchased with cash about two years ago.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Family_of_3_found_dead.html?c=y&viewAllComments=y
active link.... http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Family_of_3_found_dead.html?c=y&viewAllComments=y
Obama’s fault.
Every explanation that comes to mind leaves me a with a distinct feeling of, “Oh, well ...”
Another death by Hummer.
It had probably been waiting patiently for the opportunity ...
neighbors accidently killed their housekeeper and groundsman when their drunk son forgot to turn off the car engine. The help lived in an apartment over the garage.
Those wild SUV’s.......
If an accident, likely its the result of a remote starter accidentally triggered in the early morning. If the garage door is drafty and there was a central unit circulating air it could easily get to a point to overcome those in the house almost at the same time.
Or it could be a very well planned murder.
If that’s new Hummer, then this isn’t an accident, it’s a murder, probably by a poorly-informed “recent immigrant”.
The emission restrictions have become so strict over the years that there’s no longer enough carbon monoxide in the exhaust of a new car to kill you.
Of course, even though the online version has been (partially) corrected, the print version had “carbon dioxide” written all over it as I read it over breakfast...
that global warming!
The family was possibly involved in the import trade. Or they could just have been Mexican oligarchs getting some of their money out of Dodge.
The son being apparently overcome while taking a shower is unusual.
Let me go further. There's no longer enough carbon monoxide in the exhaust of many cars that have passed a smog test to kill you, not just the new ones. Per Wikipedia, 0.04% CO in the air can be fatal. A glance at the smog test on my 20-year-old beater shows that it generates less than 0.01% CO at idle. That's "slight headache within two to three hours" territory.
Let's see the toxicology report, and let's see that Hummer's smog test.
Not necessarily. As the oxygen in an enclosed space is used up by combustion, the production of CO goes up dramatically despite the catalytic converters and such.
http://www.chestjournal.org/content/116/2/586.long
It's a lot more difficult to kill yourself via automobile CO than it used to be, but it may not be impossible. Meanwhile, lawnmowers, compressors, generators and similar devices will still do a dandy job.
CO is almost perfectly matched in weight with air and immediately tends to go into flux; not only that but as the engine continues to run the result is a cumulative addition of harmful gases collecting. Now how easily could these gases enter the living quarters?
I recognize the sarcasm, but the murder, which is certainly not a far fetched idea, could very well be blamed by the msm on "right wing extremists" who don't want illegals (if that's what they are) in this country. And if you think i'm handing the media any ideas, think again, if this story is picked up, that will be one of the first things the msm thinks of. They don't need any help in finding things to blame on RWE.
This house could've also been a safe house for smuggling illegals into the country too. I don't know the neighborhood of which they speak, but it's close enough to the border to make that a possibility. Could be squatters snuffed them out (literally). Illegal squatters maybe. No evidence of forced entry indicates there could've been a key left somewhere where people could find it. The owners should be investigated here. But they probably won't be.
More hope and change.
I hadn’t counted on the concentration growing by the minute as an earlier poster noted. I do note that the neighbors called the police after they smelled something funny near a window. An open window? A broken window?
And there is the question in the article about whether the garage door into the house was open. In California, a door from the garage to the living quarters has to be spring-loaded so it closes automatically, and it has to be more substantial than the typical interior door for fire purposes.
Oh that’s not sarcasm. If it is a murder close to the border, the odds are vanishingly small that it was a “right wing extremist”, or even a guy who happened to be white.
The odd thing is the guy in the shower. I would think that he would have been feeling the effects and either laid down or try to get out. Shower seems odd.
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