Police investigating death of person inside burned out car in remote part of Warren
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren police are investigating the death of a person whose body was found Monday morning inside a burned-out minivan along a remote stretch of Pershing Avenue Southwest.
A woman called 911 to report a minivan that “has been set on fire,” then added: “There is a dead body in it.” When the dispatcher asked her how she knew that, she said: “You could see it.”
The woman called 911 at 10:08 a.m. Monday, but when investigators arrived, they determined the fire had burned itself out several hours earlier.
Investigators determined the car is registered to a city man, but police were not releasing any information Monday on whether they know the identity of the person who died.
The Trumbull County Coroner’s office says it is working with the police department on the case but said it does not have an identification yet.
Ken Nussle, Warren fire chief, said firefighters were called to the scene unaware the fire was already out. The fire burned everything flammable, Nussle said.
A vehicle like that would probably burn for an hour to 90 minutes, Nussle estimated.
He said it appeared the fire had burned out several hours or more before firefighters arrived. An investigator with the fire department is working to determine how the fire started. The rest of the investigation is being handled by police, Nussle said.
Nussle said the most likely reason the fire apparently burned so long before anyone noticed is that there are few houses near the location of the fire on the north end of Pershing Avenue. The street is just west of the former Warren Western Reserve High School and just west of Martin Luther King Boulevard.
On the end of Pershing where the car was found off of the edge of the road, there are also piles of garbage that have been dumped. Trees grow close to the edge of the street.
If the death is ruled a homicide, it would be the third one in the city in about two weeks, increasing the number to five this year.