The Oklahoman
FOSTER, Okla. — The three bodies found inside a burned home Saturday morning have not yet been identified, authorities said.
Investigators think a volunteer firefighter killed his twin 5-year-old sons and set his rural Foster-area home on fire before killing himself.
The state medical examiner’s office is waiting on dental records to positively identify the bodies, spokeswoman Cherokee Ballard said. A cause and manner of death were not available Monday.
About 9:20 a.m. Saturday, Garvin County sheriff’s deputies received a call about a man threatening to harm himself and his children. Deputies found the home engulfed in flames minutes later, Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes said.
The family member who called authorities said the man threatened to harm his 5-year-old twin boys in a Facebook status update.
Rhodes said the home belongs to a volunteer Pernell firefighter who had been separated from his wife for about a year. The sheriff’s office had received no previous complaints from the address.
“I’ve known (the father) for about nine years, and he was on our fire department for the whole time I knew him,” said Pernell Volunteer Fire Chief Brent Balentine. “He was an upstanding guy. He was a great friend, a great firefighter. He helped the community out.”
Balentine said he knew the father and mother of the two young boys were going through a divorce. They had been separated for close to a year, with the mother taking custody of the boys during the week and the father having custody on the weekends.
The volunteer firefighter was all about his kids, Balentine said.
Despite the divorce, they all seemed happy, he added, and no one in the community suspected any sort of violence.
“I’m the leader of the fire department and anytime (he) had anything to talk about, I listened,” the fire chief said. “All of us are always going to think about what we could have done more, but I don’t think there was anything else we could have done, other than be there for him.”
The cause of the blaze has not been determined.
Contributing: The Associated Press and Staff Writer Matt Dinger
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