Elderly Mother, Son Found Dead In Their Burned, Foreclosed Family Home [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Elderly Mother, Son Found Dead In Their Burned, Foreclosed Family Home

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/reno-foreclosure-fire-2-b_n_655377.html



A police officer keeps his weapon trained on the rear of a house as firefighters try to battle a fire in Reno, Nev. on Tuesday July 20, 2010. Firefighters, guarded by police SWAT teams, battled a blaze at a home for hours Tuesday in an upscale Reno neighborhood where sheriff's deputies reported shots were fired when they tried to serve an eviction notice (AP Photo/The Reno Gazette-Journal, Marilyn Newton)

SCOTT SONNER | 07/21/10 07:33 PM

RENO, Nev. — Two people found dead in a home that burned in an upscale Reno neighborhood had heavily fortified the foreclosed house, apparently anticipating the sheriff's deputies who came to evict them, police said Wednesday.

An investigation continued into the cause of death of the two people whose bodies were removed from the charred rubble Wednesday morning and taken to the Washoe County medical examiner's office for an autopsy.

They have not been positively identified but were believed to be Therese Christenson, 83, and her son, Gary "Axel" Christenson, 46, who had lived for decades in the house that was sold at a foreclosure auction in June.

Deputies serving the eviction notice Tuesday heard what they thought were gunshots after they announced themselves at the front door about 10:40 a.m. They took cover and noticed the house was on fire.

Police SWAT teams surrounded the area, pointing guns at the house while firefighters poured water on the flames from a distance for about eight hours.

"It had been heavily fortified," Reno police Lt. Robert Nuttall said about the home, which sits in a gated community near a finely manicured golf course designed by famed architect Robert Trent Jones Sr.

"All the windows and doors had been boarded up with pressboard and plywood from the inside. Later, we learned the front door had been barricaded with cases of ceramic tile," he told reporters Wednesday.