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Guenther Floerchinger, a 78-year-old man, is alleged to have shot his 21-year-old wife before setting his Port St. Lucie home on fire and then killing himself. Floerchinger made two phone calls before his suicide — one asking a neighbor to take his wife’s 4-year-old daughter from the home, and the other to 911 to tell police what he had done.
The Daily Mail has identified the wife as 21-year-old Carhina Floerchinger, a native of the Philippines.
According to TCPalm.com, Floerchinger called his neighbor at 1 a.m. Saturday. He asked the woman to retrieve his wife’s 4-year-old daughter from the home. The neighbor and her husband collected the child and then called police. Floerchinger is not the father of the girl.
Floerchinger also made a 911 call around that time. He told the operator that he had just killed his wife and planned to kill himself.
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Police arrived at the scene to find the front door open and Guenther dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
They discovered Carhina’s body in a back bedroom. The room had suffered smoke damage after Guenther tried to ignite some gasoline before killing himself.
“Police suspect this is another murder/suicide here in Port St. Lucie,” Officer Tom Nichols told TCPalm.com. An incident on September 9 in the otherwise sleepy town also involved a man killing his wife before killing himself.
The Daily Mail reports the couple met online while Carhina was living in the Philippines. They had been living in the house together for about a year.
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