Catherine Murch murder case gets more complicated, police ruling out ‘murder suicide’
The mysterious death of a St. Louis mother and her two children took another turn as more than 20 investigators were assigned to the case Tuesday.
Authorities originally allueded to the likely “murder suicide” but said it may be too early to draw that conclusion.
“There is still much work to do and we intend to investigate this until we get a clear understanding of what happened,” said Florissant Police Lt. Tim Fagan, who is heading the investigation for the Major Case Squad.
“There are things that are out there pending,” Fagan told a press conference. “There’s autopsy reports, there’s lab investigations, certainly much information that we are waiting on. We will have a clearer picture once we have that information available to us.”
Mitchell Murch II told police his wife had fatally shot their two children and then herself, reports Stl Today, but added Glendale Police Chief Jeff Beaton said Murch called 911 twice, beginning at 10:57 a.m. Monday, first reporting shots in his house and then that he had found his wife, Catherine Murch, 42, and their two children — Mitchell III, 10, and Mary Claire, 8 — dead.
Fagan said Murch, who allegedly was reading downstairs in the two-story brick home, has been interviewed and is cooperating with investigators. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Murch had an attorney, but Fagan said police “don’t consider him a suspect.”
Murch, who police say was performing CPR on the boy when they arrived.
He told police he “thought it was coming from outside, so he ran to his front door and saw his wife lying in the kitchen, his son was lying in a side room and his daughter was in the second story of the home,” Glendale Police Sgt. Bob Catlett told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
[…] were sketchy whether Catherine Murch indeed murdered her children then herself in a murder suicide in St Louis. […]