Two women wanted on murder charges in Idaho and missing for more than eight years were found dead northwest of Tucson just hours after their case was aired on the television show "America's Most Wanted."
Their deaths were part of a suicide pact the couple had, a sheriff's official said Monday.
Tina Loesch, 37, and Skye Hanson, 44, were being sought by authorities in connection with the 1998 slaying of Loesch's mother in Post Falls, Idaho, the Pima County Sheriff's Department said.
The pair were also believed to be traveling with Loesch's son, Kristopher, 18, who has been missing with the women since they were last seen in August 2000 in Spokane, Wash.
His whereabouts are still unknown, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a Pima County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.
There is a "strong possibility" that Loesch and Hanson had been living somewhere in Pima County, Barkman said.
The women were found dead from gunshot wounds Saturday night, parked in an SUV in a remote area northwest of Tucson west of the Tucson Mountains.
One woman shot the other, and then turned the gun on herself. Notes found in the car have led investigators to believe that it was a suicide pact, Barkman said. She would not say who shot whom.
Detectives from the Post Falls Police Department were called to Tucson to support the investigation.
The deaths mark the latest twist in an Idaho murder case that has been under investigation for 10 years. Murder warrants were issued for the two women in October.
An article published earlier this year in a Spokane newspaper said Loesch and Hanson met in prison in Boise, Idaho. After they were released, they moved in together.
Trouble started when Loesch's father, Gary, did not approve of the couple's relationship, the newspaper stated.
On Nov. 13, 1995, Gary Loesch was found shot to death while delivering newspapers near Post Falls, which is east of Spokane. No arrests were made in the slaying.
In 1998, Loesch appeared at her 52-year-old mother's door with a friend, Bradley Steckman, and said they needed a place to stay because their car had broken down. Steckman later "accidentally" knocked a television into the mother's hot tub, electrocuting her, according to the newspaper.
Steckman was imprisoned in 2001 for the slaying of another woman, 89-year-old Dorothy Martin of Pullman, Wash. Hanson worked as a cleaner in Martin's house.
While in prison, Steckman told police he killed Loesch's mother because Loesch and Hanson offered to pay him $10,000 from life-insurance benefits. He has been convicted in her death.
By 2001, Loesch and Hanson had "fallen off the face of the map," said Officer Paul Farina of the Post Falls Police Department.
With few leads to go on and believing the couple might be anywhere from Hawaii to Belize, Post Falls police called "America's Most Wanted."
The couple's story was featured in a special "Bad Girls" episode Saturday night.
Farina was driving back to his hotel in Washington, D.C., after answering tip-line phone calls at the studio following the episode when he received a call from the Pima County Sheriff's Department.
Tucson wasn't even on his radar, Farina said in an interview Monday night. "It just came out of the woodwork."
Farina believes the show probably drove Loesch and Hanson to the suicide pact but said "they are the only two who can answer that for sure."
Farina and another detective flew to Tucson to help the sheriff's investigators identify the bodies and also to continue gathering information about the 1998 case and to work to find Loesch's son.
Farina said he is relieved there have finally been developments in the case, but he doesn't view it as a victory because Kristopher Loesch is still missing.
"It's like a tie. It's not a win or a loss. I'm happy that we have a partial resolution," he said.
Anyone with information about Kristopher Loesch's whereabouts is asked to call 911 or 88-CRIME.
