Autopsy shows Ripley County fire victim was shot

CURRENT VIEW, Mo. -- Authorities were sifting through the rubble of a Current View home Wednesday searching for clues involving the death of Ripley County couple who died under suspicious circumstances.

Edgar Atkinson, 81, and Bonnie Chase, 69, were found dead in a weekend fire at their home on a private lane off County Road N2A.

Autopsies were performed Tuesday by Dr. Russell Deidiker at Mineral Area Regional Medical Center in Farmington, Mo., according to Ripley County Coroner Mike Jackson.

Atkinson's cause of death was "a gunshot wound to the head and gunshot wound to the upper torso," Jackson said. His death is being investigated as a homicide.

Chase's cause of death is undetermined, pending further toxicology testing, Jackson said. He said toxicology results could take three to four weeks to be returned.

Learning the autopsy results, "naturally, it changes our attitude toward what we're doing," said Ripley County Sheriff Ron Barnett. "Once we found this out, we secured the scene."

Rod Hoelscher, an investigator with the state fire marshal's office, was contacted again, said Barnett, who requested the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators with Troop E's Division of Drug and Crime Control.

Barnett said investigators would go back to the scene to sift through the rubble.

"We're going now to see if we can find a weapon [and] look at the scene to see what we can find that might be of value to us," Barnett said.

The one-story ranch home was fully involved when firefighters with the Purman Fire Department arrived around 11:45 p.m. Saturday. The fire reportedly was blowing out the windows but had not broken through the home's metal roof.

The cause of the fire, which was reported by a neighbor, remains under investigation, Barnett said.