Man, 2 children found dead in burned SUV

Tooele County sheriff's deputies are investigating whether a father and his two young children whose charred bodies were found early Thursday died in a double murder-suicide.

Results of autopsies being performed on the bodies could give investigators some answers as early as today.

"The cause will be determined by the state medical examiner's office," Tooele County sheriff's spokesman Wade Mathews told the Deseret Morning News.

A gasoline-drenched SUV exploded into flames in a remote

part of Tooele County early Thursday morning. Once the extremely hot fire was put out, the body of Christopher Jessop, a 30-year-old Army contractor, was found sitting between his 4-year-old son, James, and his 3-year-old daughter, Mariah, in the back seat. Sheriff's deputies said Jessop had his arm around Mariah.

"I am hoping the children were already dead," Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park said. "I would not wish anyone had been burned to death."

The sheriff said gasoline had been poured on the Jeep Liberty and used as an accelerant for the fire. The Jeep was parked at a gas pump at the Pony Express station on state Route 196 on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation.

A truck driver was northbound on S.R. 196 around 1:30 Thursday morning when he reported feeling a "whoosh" and spotted flames. By the time he was able to turn his dump truck around, deputies said the SUV was engulfed in fire.

The trucker drove back to the landfill, where a 2,000-gallon water tanker truck was parked. Garth Bear was working at the landfill and was the first to arrive on the scene of the explosion.

"My initial reaction was to put the thing out," said Bear.

It took him 10 to 15 minutes to douse the flames. Meanwhile, fire departments miles away were called to help.

"It's bad because this is far away from emergency services," Bear said. "It takes 20 to 30 minutes before Dugway can respond."

Fire departments from Dugway and Terra responded to help extinguish the blaze. The force of the explosion torched bushes as far as 30 feet away and charred the station's overhang. The entire pump station was blackened, its north side hollowed out.

Looking inside the torched vehicle, Bear spied the bodies.