Associated Press
ALAMOGORDO — An Alamogordo woman apparently shot herself in the head as officers tried to serve a search warrant on her home, where police later found the decomposed body of a man who also had been shot.
Sammie Griffin was pronounced dead shortly after arrival Monday at Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas.
Officers arrived at her house at 1:17 p.m. Monday to look for her missing husband, Christopher Griffin, armed with the warrant they said they obtained based on suspicious circumstances and earlier statements from Mrs. Griffin.
When police arrived, the woman told officers to wait because she was on the phone and needed to hang up, they said. When she did not return to the door, they went inside and found her in the kitchen with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Officers found a man's body in an enclosed back porch, said Alamogordo police Sgt. Lee Wilder. He had died of a gunshot wound to the head, Wilder said Tuesday.
The state Office of the Medical Investigator has not identified the man's body, but will compare dental records to determine whether it is that of Christopher Griffin, Wilder said.
The investigation is difficult "because the only witnesses to what happened inside the house are both deceased," he said.
However, he said, "with the information that we were looking for a missing subject and that she was concealing information, it does look suspicious and leads us toward looking at a homicide-suicide."
The OMI did not immediately determine how long the man had been dead, he said.
Christopher Griffin's relatives have said they had not heard from him in a month, Wilder said. Members of his family had called police numerous times, concerned about his well-being after they hadn't heard from him.
Wilder said police obtained the search warrant after determining Mrs. Griffin's previous stories about her husband's whereabouts were not true.
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