Girl, 8, finds mother, man dead in garage

An 8-year-old Spokane Valley girl walked out to her family’s garage about 10:15 a.m. Saturday looking for her mother. She found her and a male acquaintance, who appeared to be asleep inside a 1967 Ford pickup.

But her mother wouldn’t wake up.

The girl went back into the house at 12918 E. 16th Ave. – just across from McDonald Elementary – and alerted another man living in the home, Spokane Valley Police Chief Cal Walker said. The man called for help, and paramedics found the woman, 28, and man, 32, dead from apparent carbon monoxide asphyxiation.

“It’s just devastating to think about the kids,” Walker said, “especially the 8-year-old. She came out to find Mom. That’s old enough to have lifelong memories. It’s a tragedy.”

Walker assigned a major crimes detective to the case to help determine how the two adults died. It was inside the garage, which had the door partially open.

“We didn’t see anything unusual for us to think anything other than accidental,” Walker said.

The three girls – the other two ages 4 and 6 – were exhibiting signs of asphyxia, so emergency crews treated them with oxygen before transporting them to a hospital. Investigators initially placed them in the care of Child Protective Services, but they were quickly turned over to their maternal grandmother, Walker said.

The three girls’ father did not live in the home, where their mother was living with three men – who were all just friends or associates, Walker said.

One of the girls celebrated a birthday Friday, Walker said.

The truck where the bodies were found was parked diagonally inside the two-car garage. Three other vehicles were parked in the driveway. The key to the Ford pickup was in the “on” position and the heater fan was running, but the truck’s engine was not operating when the bodies were discovered, Spokane Valley Police spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said.

The truck’s exhaust pipe was detached at the back of the muffler, so the most dangerous fumes were near the cab, Walker said.

“In talking to the detectives, they had to speculate that maybe the truck was turned on for a while and then turned off,” he said. “But even with the door open, (carbon monoxide) is going to build up.”

The truck had fresh coats of spray paint, which also contributed fumes to the garage, he said. “We were standing out in the street and you could smell paint fumes,” Walker said.

Sheriff’s investigators obtained consent to search and found a small quantity of methamphetamine inside the truck. “You can’t infer anything, but that is one of the things we will be looking at,” Walker said.

Despite that discovery, Sgt. Steve Barbieri reiterated that the deaths appeared to be accidental.

Names of the victims won’t be released until officials are sure all next of kin have been contacted, Walker said.

“We have a lot of singular type suicides where people shut themselves in the garage,” Walker said. “Or we have accidental deaths. But we usually don’t have more than one victim.”