SAN ANTONIO – 4 p.m. Update:
The Bexar County Medical Examiner revealed that two people who were found dead inside of a burned Northwest Side apartment had gunshot wounds, prompting a homicide investigation.
San Antonio police said Thursday afternoon that the medical examiner hasn’t been able to identify the victims, but they do believe there’s a “homicide aspect” to the incident, which initially came out as a structure fire in the 900 block of Waverly Avenue after midnight.
The ME conducted autopsies on the victims -- a man and a woman -- and found they had gunshot wounds. However, their exact causes of death haven’t been determined.
Police said they only received calls overnight for a structure fire, and the home was fully engulfed in flames. They didn’t receive any reports of shots fired or shots heard.
Homicide investigators were called back to the scene Thursday afternoon to conduct a “secondary investigation,” police said. Further details are limited at this time.
Original:
San Antonio homicide detectives and arson investigators are looking into the details surrounding the deaths of two people found at the scene of an apartment fire.
Fire crews initially were called after 12 a.m. Thursday to put out the fire in a rear apartment, located in the 900 block of Waverly Avenue.
RELATED: 2 people found dead after apartment fire northwest of downtown
“It was fully involved, heavily involved in fire. They were unable to make entry so they had to fight the fire from the outside,” said Joseph Arrington, a public information officer for the San Antonio Fire Department.
However, Arrington says, once fire crews had knocked down the flames and made their way inside, they discovered there was more to it.
“Unfortunately we did find two victims that were deceased in the fire,” he said.
It appears those firefighters also found circumstances inside the home which prompted them to call in arson investigators, then police.
As of late Thursday morning, though, it was still unclear whether a crime had been committed.
Throughout the early morning, relatives began to learn of the deaths and show up at the scene.
Maria Montero told KSAT 12 News that the man who died was her cousin.
She said the woman who was found dead was an aunt to both her and the male victim.
“She has two children in Mexico. She came over here to work,” Montero said of her aunt.
Her cousin, she said, had been living in the apartment for some time and was helping his aunt by allowing her to stay with him.
Although investigators have not reached any conclusions about the case yet, Montero had her suspicions after taking a peek inside the burned apartment.
“There’s a lot of blood on the floor from both of them,” she said. “I think somebody did it.”
Arrington said investigators are waiting on the results of autopsies on the two victims to tell them more about what happened.