By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CENTRALIA – Some neighbors were evacuated and others asked to stay in their homes during a gun scare incident today at a house in a Centralia retirement community.
It ended with a man in his 70s dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound and his wife taken to the hospital for a precautionary examination, according to police.
Officers were called about 12:40 p.m. to Stillwaters Estates near Providence Centralia Hospital where a caregiver stepped out of the house to call 911 after the man made a statement about a gun and walked into his wife’s bedroom with a rifle, according to police.
Centralia Police Department spokesperson Officer John Panco said in a news release the man had possibly made threats to harm his wife.
Because of the weapon, SWAT team members were called in and officers made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to contact the couple, Panco said.
Finally, around 3 p.m., officers entered the home on the 100 block of Hawthorne Lane and found the man dead, Panco said. The wife was not shot or harmed, according to Panco.
Panco said he did not know which of the couple was under the care of a caregiver. He said he did not know why the man would have killed himself.
Police didn’t heard the gunshot, Panco said.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter