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Friday, Oct. 02, 2009
Crash in east Merced neighborhood; driver apparently shoots himself during chase
A car chase through east Merced ended in the apparent suicide of a man that deputies wanted to question about a domestic dispute.
Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin said his department received a call mid-morning about a domestic disturbance on Lobo Avenue in the Beachwood area. The man who was involved in the dispute took off in a Toyota 4Runner, and a sheriff's deputy in the area saw the truck and tried to stop it.
The suspect took off when he saw the sheriff's deputy, and the Toyota ended up on W and Ninth streets. At some point, the driver allegedly used a gun to shoot himself in the head. The car crashed through two backyard fences of a house on Ninth Street and ended up smashing into a tree.
Merced Sun-Star - Sheriff's deputies and detectives gather important information from the smashed up Toyota SR5 SUV 4runner.
Pazin said the man was transported to Mercy Medical Center Merced, and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
The truck ended up just yards away from Gracey Elementary School, but Pazin said the situation happened so fast that there wasn't time for a lockdown at the school.
Pazin said the deputy, who had only been on the job for two days, was not hurt in the incident.
The owners of the property where the car ended up, Martin and Aurora Castillo, were not home when the accident occurred.
"I'm glad my husband wasn't home; he is back and forth across the back lawn between the house and the garage all the time," Aurora Castillo said.
The name of the deceased man will not be released by the sheriff's department until his next of kin are notified.
Reporter Carol Reiter can be reached at (209) 385-2486 or creiter@mercedsun-star.com
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