Candace Hawkins Obituary, Death Cause – When firemen in Madison Heights went into a house early Wednesday to put out a fire, they found two bodies with stab wounds. Police say it was a murder-suicide. Police said the bodies belong to Christopher Spicer, 40, who lived there, and Candace Hawkins, 42, who lived elsewhere in the city and was his ex-girlfriend and with whom he kept in touch. Madison Heights Fire Marshal Paul Biliti said that at 9:27 a.m. Wednesday, a neighbor called 911 because they saw white smoke coming from the roof of the house at 52 W. Harding Street. One block south of Lincoln Avenue, the street is just west of John R. Road.
She said, “Spicer started the fire to hide a crime.” He said Hawkins was wearing pajamas when firemen found her body in a bedroom. She had been stabbed several times. His body, which was only in shorts, was found near the front door of the house.
Police said in a statement that the deaths were ruled a murder-suicide by the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Officer later that day. “Preliminary autopsy results showed Hawkins died of a murder and had stab wounds that she did not cause herself,” Police Lt. David Koehler said in the statement. Spicer was found to have killed himself.
In the statement, Koehler said, “Our condolences go out to those affected by this tragedy.” He said that Spicer and Hawkins had been dating before, but that “they were still in communication.” Biliti confirmed that Spicer put gasoline in a closet in the hallway and started it on fire before he killed himself.
He said, “You couldn’t even tell there was a fire in the house from the outside.” “We got there before the fire could start.” The smoke coming from the top of Spicer’s one-story house was the only sign that something was wrong. Spicer, on the other hand, only had a few stab wounds to his chest when the bodies were found by firemen, he said.
Biliti said that when firemen first went into the house, they found some blood near Spicer’s body and a lot more in the room where Hawking’s body was found. “She had many knife wounds on her neck and torso,” he said. A gas can was found close to the closet in the hallway where the fire started.
The house isn’t badly damaged because the fire was put out so quickly after it started. As soon as firemen found the bodies, they called the police to start an investigation. A mobile crime lab from the Michigan State Police was sent to the house to help collect and look over evidence.
A part of the residential street was blocked off while fire and police officers worked. “The DNA, fibers, and fingerprint test results from the state police are still not here,” Biliti said. Based on their research, the Madison Heights Fire Department found that the fire was set on purpose, Koehler said in his statement. Police are still looking over the evidence to see if it fits with what the fire department found and what the autopsy showed.
