TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A man, his wife and their two teenage
children were shot before the million-dollar home they were renting
burned down in what investigators called arson, a fire perhaps
exacerbated by fireworks and gasoline, authorities said Thursday.
Autopsies
were still being completed to determine how they died, but
investigators have said they are looking into the possibility of a
murder-suicide. Authorities recovered a gun at the home registered to
Darrin Campbell and he bought an "exceedingly large amount" of fireworks
and gas cans days before the fire, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Col.
Donna Lusczynski said.
Authorities still have not positively
identified the bodies, but the family has not been accounted for and a
relative said they were inside the home when it burned.
As flames
shot through the roof Wednesday morning, neighbors reported explosions,
presumably hearing fireworks go off inside. Authorities have not
indicated who may have started the fire or why.
Campbell bought
$650 of fireworks on Sunday and authorities said fireworks were found
throughout the five-bedroom home. Still, it wasn’t clear what role the
fireworks might have played, though Lusczynski said they could’ve been
used to ignite the fire or keep it going.
Campbell had been an
executive for several high-profile businesses. He was currently working
at a records management firm and volunteering as treasurer at his
children’s private school. His wife, Kimberly, was a stay-at-home mom,
according to her father, Gordon Lambie.
The family moved to Tampa
more than a decade ago. They sold their home in 2012 for $750,000 and
signed a two-year lease for the 6,000 square-foot home owned by former
tennis pro James Blake. He bought the home in the Avila community in
2005 for $1.5 million, according to property records.
Avila is
known for its mansions, heavy security, country club and golf course.
Many well-known athletes have called the community home over the years.
Lambie said the family wanted to move closer to the children’s school, Carrollwood Day School.
Nineteen-year-old
Colin Campbell was a talented baseball player who planned to graduate
high school next month. His teenage sister, Megan, was a ninth-grader
who made an honor roll and took dance lessons.
"I’ve lost my entire family," Lambie said from his Michigan home. "It’s very tough right
now because I’m 1,500 miles away."
Campbell
bought six packages of firecrackers and about the same number of
fireworks designed to shoot into the air, said William Weimer, vice
president of Ohio-based Phantom fireworks. He described them as backyard
fireworks someone might set off on the Fourth of July.
He said
the fireworks could have started a fire but it would have spread slowly.
The amount of powder inside each one was smaller than an aspirin, he
said.
A store manager, Rocky DiRoma, said there was nothing unusual about the $650 purchase.
"He was just an average Joe," DiRoma said.
Neighbors described hearing the fireworks.
"Geez. What is that popping noise?" a man said on a 911 call.
Another 911 caller, a security manager for the gated community, told dispatchers the fire was in the
garage.
Darrin
and Kimberly met in Lansing, Michigan, when they both worked as aides
in the state legislature, her father said. Kimberly Campbell had
graduated from Central Michigan University and Darrin Campbell had an
MBA from the University of Michigan.
They lived in San Antonio, where Campbell was an executive with Pearl Brewing Company, before moving to
Tampa.
At
some point, he became senior vice president at PODS, the mobile storage
company, and left in 2007. He was currently chief operating officer at
Vastec, where he worked for the past six months.
Friends of the teens gathered Wednesday and released balloons with messages on them as a remembrance.
A former neighbor, George Connley, said Kimberly Campbell was "sophisticated and classy."
"We
know nothing of any problems," Connley said. "The kids were outstanding
children. This is very difficult to put our arms around."
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Schneider reported from Orlando.
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Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush