Officials believe Reno man killed himself after setting fire to his home
By Brian Rosenthal
July 9, 2009
Authorities believe a man started an explosive house fire Wednesday morning and then killed himself in the backyard.
An explosion rocked a quiet northwest Reno neighborhood at about 9:50 a.m., said Joe Stoltz, who lives two houses away. Several smaller explosions followed at a single-story house at 880 Rhode Island Drive.
"The initial explosion was big; it shook the neighborhood, it shook the floor," Stoltz said. "Absolutely, I was freaked out."
Authorities did not identify the victim Wednesday and would not say how he took his life. They scheduled an autopsy for Thursday.
The man started the fire by igniting an accelerant in the house, said investigators, who revealed little other information.
Neighbors on the scene said a man in his early 40s lived alone in the 1,780-square-foot, four-bedroom home.
Stoltz, 40, said he ran to the house after the explosion to see if anybody was inside but the front of house was engulfed in flames.
"I went to the window, and I screamed into the bedroom," he said. "Nobody answered."
Smoke was visible for miles from the fire, which destroyed the home and parts of a fence and the garage of a house next door.
A spokesman for the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office said the man had not been identified. Washoe County assessor's records list the owner of the house as Dean L. Talucci, and five neighbors referred to the owner as "Dean." One of them, next door neighbor Phyllis Mattingly, reported seeing Dean in the backyard of the house at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Less than three hours later, seven firetrucks and officials from the Reno Police Department, Washoe County Sheriff's Crime Lab, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and NV Energy were on the scene .
From across the street, neighbors and others watched as orange flames swept across the house and black smoke poured out of it. Yellow hoses snaked along the road as 35 firefighters fought the blaze.
"That's a pretty severe fire," said fire restoration specialist Joe Messinger, 62, looking at the remains of the house. "It's pretty devastating."
Messinger, who said he came to the scene to offer assistance, credited firefighters with quickly containing the fire before it spread to other houses, which he said could have happened easily.
Tommy Jeffreys, 21, said he was at a nearby gas station when his girlfriend saw the flames.
"The smoke just started getting thicker and thicker," he said. "It's pretty crazy."
At one point, firefighters were ordered from the house because of indications the roof might collapse, said Steve Frady, Reno public safety spokesman.
The fire was almost entirely knocked down by 11 a.m. No injuries were reported, Frady said.
At a nearby day care center, a staffer said she saw the blaze and called 911 after herding the 33 young children inside.
"They were pretty frightened," said Jessica Higgenbottom, 31, administrator at Ginny's Child Garden West, adding she considered evacuating the center.
"I'm sorry to hear somebody's life was lost," she said. "That's incredibly sad."
By 6 p.m., all but a few of the neighbors, spectators and reporters had cleared the streets. Four firefighters remained, sweeping up glass and supervising other clean-up, while half a dozen men boarded up the house and surrounded it with a metal fence to protect it from vandalism.
Judy Goza stood across the street. The 58-year-old said she had lived across from the now-burned house for many years and knew the residents.
"I'm just shocked," she said. "It's very sad."