A California real estate agent is under arrest and remains in custody under suspicion that he committed a double murder.
Various media outlets in and around Los Angeles reported the details on Christopher Ireland, arrested on New Year’s Day.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Ireland is suspected in the deaths of two of his wife’s female co-workers, whose bodies were found after a suspicious fire destroyed the home of the one of the women.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The case began to unfold about 5:30 a.m. Sunday, when the Orange County Fire Authority was called to a fire at a house in the 5000 block of Northwestern Way in Westminster. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and called arson investigators and Westminster police detectives to the scene because of "suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire," according to police.
When authorities arrived, the homeowner, 59-year-old Yolanda Holtrey, and her friend, a 49-year-old woman from Huntington Beach, were nowhere to be found.
The women’s bodies were later found in a field. Police said that the women were likely killed in the home and later moved to the field.
Again from the Los Angeles Times:
The Orange County coroner's office identified the second woman Wednesday as Michelle Luke. Friends said she worked with Holtrey and Ireland's wife, Samantha, at the Huntington Beach location of Stein Mart, a department store.
KTLA reported that police said the crime appears to be an “isolated incident” and said that here are currently no other suspects.
According to the report, Ireland’s wife told a local news station that Ireland planned to help Holtrey sell her house.
Ireland’s wife also said that neither she nor her husband remember him leaving the house on the night when the crimes allegedly took place, adding that he may have been “sleepwalking.”
