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Authorities in Amherst Township, Ohio, are investigating the deaths of a mother and her young son as an apparent murder-suicide after they were discovered inside their home following a house fire on Wednesday morning.
Firefighters were dispatched to a residence in the 300 block of Broadway Street shortly before 7:30 a.m. after an alarm company placed a call to authorities. Upon extinguishing what officials described as a "very small bedroom fire," crews found the bodies. The official identification of the victims was later confirmed as 46-year-old Risa Louks and her son, 9-year-old Alex Louks.
The Lorain County Sheriff’s Office released a statement explaining that preliminary findings point towards a tragic sequence of events. According to emerging details from the investigation, evidence suggests "the mother may have taken her child's life before setting the house on fire and subsequently ending her own life." Investigators confirmed the two were found together in one of the bedrooms.
The incident has deeply affected the local community. Captain Robert E. Vansant Jr. of the Sheriff's Office acknowledged "the profound loss being felt in the Amherst and Amherst Township communities and within the Amherst Exempted School District." Based on reports detailing the sequence of events on Wednesday morning, the initial alert from the alarm company was critical in prompting the emergency response. The investigation remains ongoing as authorities work to determine the full circumstances that led to the deaths.
