Father, son, 7, found dead: Plantation firefighters again are mourning this year after losing one of their own in a murder-suicide
The Miami Herald (Florida)
Copyright 2006 The Miami Herald
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
By Diana Moskovitz
A volunteer Plantation firefighter and his disabled son were found dead in their Sunrise home on Sunday in an apparent murder-suicide.
Matthew Wheeler, 37, and Dillon Wheeler, 7, died in a locked garage with the car running, according to Sunrise police.
They were found by Wheeler’s girlfriend, who had just come home with her daughter to the house they shared in the 1000 block of Northwest 33rd Avenue.
Wheeler’s girlfriend, Rebecca Cann, 38, is a Tamarac Fire Rescue paramedic.
The pair had been living together for several years, neighbors said. Each had one child from previous relationships.
Wheeler’s son suffered from mitochondrial disease, Sunrise police said. Dillon needed a wheelchair and the help of others to move around.
Mitochondrial disease is a type of genetic disorder. Symptoms vary depending on which cells are affected, but they may include a loss of muscle coordination and weakness.
Neighbor Paula DiFabio, 38, said she met Wheeler a few months ago, when she saw him outside with Dillon. Wheeler recently started caring for his son full-time. He got a new van, which was parked in the front yard Sunday, to help the boy get around, she said.
“He seemed like he adored that child,” DiFabio said.
But caring for the son also was difficult and time-consuming, she said. Wheeler couldn’t afford a full-time nurse.
“He probably felt like, if he didn’t, who would take care of him?” DiFabio said.
Sunrise police did not release the contents of the suicide note that Wheeler left.
When Cann and her daughter came home shortly after 3 p.m., she noticed the odor of car fumes, Sunrise police Lt. Robert Voss said. The kitchen door to the garage also was locked, Voss said.
Cann told her daughter to leave the house, and Cann called police.
At about that time, neighbor Pete Conde, 50, was outside putting up his Christmas lights when he saw a woman run screaming out of the house, he said.
She kept pointing at the garage door, he said.
“At first I thought it was a fire,” Conde said.
Firefighters opened the garage door and pushed out the dark green Pontiac sports car.
Inside, they found the bodies of the father and son.
Wheeler is not the first Plantation firefighter to die in a murder-suicide this year.
Laura Grunas, 30, a Plantation police officer, fatally shot her boyfriend Robert Peat, 31, a Plantation firefighter, in his Plantation home in early August. Then she killed herself.
The deaths came as a shock, spokesman battalion chief Joel Gordon said.
“We’re like a family,” Gordon said, “so it’s like losing a member of the family.”