A San Diego woman called 911 twice and received a visit from officers just minutes before she died in a house fire, according to a medical examiner’s report.
Maria Lopez, 62, died of smoke inhalation and burns on July 16 when the converted garage she lived in caught fire.
According to the report, Lopez called San Diego Police just an hour before the blaze started to report someone was on her property with a gun. SDPD dispatchers had received several similar calls from Lopez in the weeks leading up to her death, officials said.
When police did not immediately respond to her Ocean View Boulevard home on July 16, Lopez called again and said there was “someone in her couch,” the medical examiner’s report states.
Officers responded, checked her home and found nothing. Police said Lopez did not meet the criteria to be transported to the hospital for psychiatric reasons, so the officers left at 10:16 p.m.
Just five minutes later, the SDPD got an anonymous call about a fire at Lopez’s home. Though firefighters were able to put it out within five minutes of arriving, they soon found the victim’s body inside.
As officials investigated Lopez’s death, her sons revealed that she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia but had no known history of depression or suicide attempts. One of her sons said she had “suicidal ideations,” which her second son disputed, the report says.
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An autopsy revealed Lopez had methamphetamine in her system when she died.
An arson investigation did not determine the cause of the fire, but there were two cigarette lighters found near Lopez’s body.
“It appears that the fire was either caused by the decedent herself with her lighters, whether using their flames for light to look for the person that she was hallucinating in her sofa, or to cause the person’s removal, or accidentally while using methamphetamine; or caused by the decedent’s electrical appliances,” the medical examiner’s report reads.
Because there is no evidence that Lopez meant to set the fire, her death has been ruled an accident.
In July, the victim’s son Paul Lopez told NBC 7 he believed his mother’s death was suspicious. A smashed window indicated she tried to escape her home, but the back door was nailed shut and the sofa was pushed up against the front door, Paul said.
