IRELAND, W.Va. — Lewis County Sheriff Dave Gosa says there’s another victim at the scene of a deadly fire on Glady Creek Road near the community of Ireland.
Gosa told MetroNews Tuesday a mans’ body was found about 100 yards from the house behind a chicken coop. He had suffered a fatal gunshot wound.
The body, which was discovered around 10 p.m. Monday, is the fifth victim in connection with the late Sunday night crime that also claimed the lives of four people inside the house.
Authorities have said the suspect in the case, Luke Wilson, 45, of Walkersville, drove to eastern Kanawha County after the fire where he committed suicide in front of a relative’s house.
Gosa said Tuesday that it was “a good possibility” that Wilson killed all five victims before setting the fire. He confirmed the victims inside the house were three adults, a man and two women, and an infant child.
Authorities knew there was the possibility of a fifth victim but it took a while to locate him, Gosa said.
“We had had several names mentioned that might be in that house besides the residents and we only found four bodies in the house,” Gosa told MetroNews.
Gosa said the man found outside the house and Wilson were friends. He said neither man was related to the four victims inside the house but they knew them.
“We still don’t have a motive at this point in the investigation,” Gosa said. “He (fifth victim) was friends with all of the people in that house and friends with the alleged shooter, that’s how they are all connected.”
Gosa is hopeful autopsies at the state Medical Examiner’s Office will help positively identify the victims and determine causes of death. He admitted it’s a difficult investigation because no one survived the violence.
Interviews are occurring with family members of the victims.
“We’ve had family members calling and we’ve had various people reach out to us and discuss certain aspects of it,” Gosa said.
Arson investigation
West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office Chief Investigator Jason Baltic said the blaze was a “total burn.”
“There was only one remaining wall on the rear of this home. It’s in a very rural area and by the time the fire department was even alerted to this fire it had a head start on them,” Baltic told MetroNews Tuesday.
The damage was absolute to the structure and made recovery of the bodies difficult.
As for a cause, the level of damage has made it almost impossible to determine a cause. Baltic said most physical evidence burned up in the fire but there are a lot of extenuating circumstances which led them to believe the fire was of suspicious origin.
“I don’t know if we would come up with an actual cause just using the fire scene itself, but with all of the circumstances coming into the scene it would bring us to a conclusion this was most probably arson, but we’re not there yet,” he said.
MetroNews reporters Chris Lawrence and Alex Wiederspiel contributed to this story.