WYANDOTTE (WWJ) — A man accused of murdering a woman in Wyandotte over the weekend has been arrested after allegedly setting himself on fire in front of police in Ohio.
The 59-year-old man, whose name has not been released, is suspected of killing a 55-year-old woman in Wyandotte and then fleeing to Ohio, according to a report from ABC News 5 in Cleveland.
Wyandotte police officers performed a welfare check at a home on 10th Street after getting a call from the victim’s co-workers Saturday that she had not showed up for work in multiple days.
Authorities found the woman dead inside her apartment and her vehicle was gone, believed to have been stolen by the suspect, according to the report. It was not clear if the suspect and victim knew each other.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Monday the Akron Police Department’s Flock camera system picked up a license plate registered to the vehicle the suspect was driving, according to the report.
Akron police officers “conducted a high-risk traffic stop” on the car, which pulled into the parking lot of a beauty supply store on Copley Road. Officers approached the car at gunpoint and gave the man “verbal commands to turn off the vehicle and drop the knife he had in his hand,” according to the report.
That’s when officers saw smoke coming from the vehicle, as the suspect had set himself on fire.
Authorities say he then jumped out of the car and officers used fire extinguishers on him. They later put out small flames inside the car.
Medics took the man to Akron Children’s Hospital with non-life-threatening burn injuries, according to the report.
No further information about the murder in Wyandotte has been released, including the victim’s cause of death.