HAWES TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A 78-year-old man apparently took his own life after shooting three people at his home Wednesday, killing one of them, authorities said.
The Alcona County sheriff's department said Edgar Wendt was found dead in an apparent suicide in the basement of his Hawes Township home. The three wounded people were taken to Alpena Regional Medical Center, where one later died.
Sheriff Doug Atchison said seven of the eight people inside the home at the time of the shootings were related. It was not immediately known how Wendt was related to the victims.
Authorities also did not disclose a motive for the shootings.
The sheriff's department didn't identify the victims, but The Alpena News reported that a 34-year-old woman, 70-year-old man and 16-year-old boy had been shot. It wasn't immediately known which victim had died.
The newspaper reported that the woman was listed in critical condition, and the man and the teen were in stable condition.
Bruce Ball, who was in the area at the time of the shootings, said he drove the woman and teen to a hospital. He said the boy told him the woman was his mother and that he had been shot in the head.
"I just loaded them up in my truck and got them away from there, before the shooter came out," Ball said.
A phone call to a number listed for Edgar Wendt went unanswered Wednesday night.
Hawes Township is about 160 miles north of Detroit.
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