Las Vegas officer, wife and son dead in murder-suicide, authorities say

(CBS/AP) LAS VEGAS - Authorities said a Las Vegas police lieutenant shot his wife, son and then himself in a burning home Monday in an apparent double murder-suicide.

Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy said the names of the dead will probably be released Tuesday.

Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said a man called 911 at about 8:20 a.m. Monday and told a dispatcher he killed his wife and child, set his house afire and would shoot anyone who approached.

Boulder City police arrived to find the homeowner with a handgun in the doorway of the burning house before he went inside and apparently killed himself, Paul said. Police later found the bodies of a 52-year-old man, a 46-year-old woman and a boy inside. Officials said the boy was believed to be about 7-years-old.

"We're investigating the incident as a murder-suicide at this time," Paul said.

Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie, the elected head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, didn't immediately identify the police officer or the victims, but said the lieutenant was a 20-year veteran of the force. Gillespie spoke of "untold grief" for family members, friends and co-workers.

"There was an incident today involving one if Metro's lieutenants," Gillespie said in brief statement Monday. "Several bodies were discovered."

The sheriff said the investigation in Boulder City, about 20 miles southeast of Las Vegas, was being handled by police in neighboring Henderson.

According to Clark County assessor records, the home is owned by Hans Walters, who many know as a Las Vegas police lieutenant married to a former Las Vegas police officer, Kathryn Walters. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that she left the department in 2005.

Officials think the boy was born around that time.