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2008 TPA Better Newspaper Contest

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Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post

Body Discovered Monday As Fire Destroys House

Homicide is being considered in the death of a Fredericksburg resident whose body was found by fire fighters while battling a house fire Monday night at 506 Franklin Street in the southwest section of the city.

Linda Ann Muegge, 55, was the owner and the deceased occupant of the one-story frame house which was declared a total loss by Fredericksburg Fire Marshal Wallace Britten who said yesterday the cause of the fire is under investigation.

The preliminary results of an autopsy conducted by the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office in Austin and released this morning stated that Ms. Muegge "had sustained trauma reflective of homicide prior to the structure fire."

A positive identification of Ms. Muegge was made through dental records, Fredericksburg Police Chief Paul Oestreich said today.

The autopsy was ordered Monday night by Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Louis Rech after he had finished conducting an inquest at the scene.

Meanwhile, officials of the State Fire Marshal's Office in Austin arrived here this morning to conduct an investigation into circumstances surrounding the fire.

The alarm for the fire was first sounded at 7:59 p.m. Monday after passers-by noticed smoke and flames coming from the three-bedroom home.

Twenty-eight members along with five trucks of the Fredericksburg Volunteer Fire Department were dispatched to the scene where the house was virtually "fully involved" upon their arrival.

Britton said the witnesses who happened upon the burning home before emergency personnel arrived had initially tried to enter the house from different sides in hopes of helping anyone who might be inside, but they were quickly driven back by smoke and flames.

At the time, FVFD members had been only about five blocks away from where the fire broke out along the south side of Baron's Creek, participating in a regular Monday night drill that involved a pre-planning inspection of the new Hampton Inn in the 500-block of East Main.

As a result, explained Fredericksburg Fire Chief Steve Olfers, it took firemen only about two minutes to reach the burning house once the alarm came in rather than the five-to-six minutes that would normally be required from the fire station in the 100 block of West Main.

As some firemen began fighting the fire from the outside by directing water hoses at the front of the residence, Olfers said other teams wearing protective gear and breathing packs almost immediately entered the structure from the rear — where smoke and flames were not as great — in order to conduct an interior search for possible occupants.

"This fire burned incredibly fast," said Olfers, who reported that it took firemen almost five hours to complete their work at the scene before the last truck returned to the fire station at 12:40 a.m.

Also assisting were Fredericksburg EMS personnel who were dispatched to the location of Monday night's fire as were officers of the Fredericksburg Police Department who subsequently roped off the area after the fire was put out in anticipation of today's investigation by state fire marshals.

The last homicide death in Gillespie County was that of Yuhuai Yan, 26, of San Antonio who was discovered Feb. 2, 2000, on the side of Interstate 10 between Kerrville and Junction. No arrest has been made in that murder case which remains under investigation.