UPDATE | People found in Warren fire died of gunshot wounds

WARREN

The man and woman found dead in their a home on Ivanhoe Street Northeast late Friday died from gunshot wounds and not from the fire, the Trumbull Count Coroner’s Office has ruled.

Charles McNear, 53, who owned the house at 448 Ivanhoe, was one of the victims. Police believe his girlfriend, Sophie Stefek, 41, is other other victim.

There was no smoke in their lungs, which is evidence that the fire didn’t cause their deaths, police said.

McNear was granted a civil protection order Oct. 20, and the protection order was served on a 42-year-old city man on Wednesday afternoon.

McNear called Warren police earlier Wednesday, telling them he had been granted a protection order and asking them to make the man and his girlfriend leave his home. Police were unable to locate the man.

But police interviewed the 42-year-old on Saturday. He was not detained.

In his request for the protection order Oct. 20, McNear said William J. Richardson had come to live at his house about two weeks earlier, though he never invited Richardson.

He said Stefek wanted him there, but McNear had asked Richardson in mid-October to leave, and Richardson wouldn’t. He said Richardson had threatened to hurt him, called him names and “held a chair to my head.”

Magistrate Patrick McCarthy of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court granted McNear a civil protection order against Richardson on Oct. 20, the same day McCarthy heard testimony from McNear.

“I have a physical disability, and he preys on that,” McNear told McCarthy. “I am scared to death of this person.”

A deputy with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s office located Richardson at about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday at the North End Market on North Park Avenue and served the protection order on him.

McNear had called Warren police earlier at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday to ask them to make Richardson leave his house, but a Warren police report says an officer checked and didn’t find Richardson.