The investigation of a burned vehicle at a concrete business in the east end of the county has determined the man whose remains were discovered in the pickup killed himself.
The medical examiner’s report found the man set the pickup on fire and then shot himself in the head, Lampasas County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Wayne Hilgenberg said Thursday.
The Lampasas Dispatch Record typically does not publish the names of the deceased in suicide cases.
Law-enforcement authorities found a burned Ford F-150 on Sept. 17 in a gravel pit behind a concrete business in the 2000 block of U.S. Highway 190 West. The business is partially inside Copperas Cove city limits, but the vehicle fire was within Lampasas County, Sheriff Jess Ramos said.
The pickup was resting upright at the bottom of a gravel pit, Ramos said after the investigation began. The vehicle was “completely burned,” according to a sheriff’s office news release.
Ramos said the fire apparently extinguished itself by the time all law-enforcement agencies arrived, although parts of the pickup still were hot when authorities arrived at the scene.
Authorities found a semi-automatic handgun in the driver's seat and sent the pistol to the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Forensic Laboratory for examination, according to Ramos.
Authorities also sought a medical examiner’s report to determine the identity of the deceased and the cause of death.
The Lampasas County Sheriff’s Office led the investigation, with Hilgenberg and Investigator David Thorp working on the case.
Lampasas Fire Marshal Ronnie Withers and the state fire marshal’s office were very helpful in gathering evidence for an anthropologist to analyze, Hilgenberg said Thursday.
The Copperas Cove Police Department, Texas Rangers and Lampasas Police Department assisted the sheriff's office with processing evidence from the scene and drone photography.